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.UNITED STATES OF AMKRICA.f 



Glimpses of Christ 



HOLY SCRIPTURE. 



THOMAS LAURIE, D. D., 

AUTHOR OF "DK. GRANT AND THE MOUNTAIN NESTORIANS," "WOMAN AND HEK 
SAVIOUR IN PERSIA," ETC. 



" He looketh forth at the tcindows, 

shoioing himself through the lattice?^ 

Sol. Song, ii 9. 




BOSTON; 



GrOTJLD .A^ISTD X.I]NJ-COXj IST, 

59 WASHINGTON STREET. 

NEW YORK: SHELDON AXD COMPANY. 

CINCINNATI : G. S. BLANCHAKD AND CO, 



18 6a. 






Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 

GOULD AKD LINCOLK, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



Rockwell & Rollins, Stereotypeks and Pkinteks. 



PEEFACE, 



These pages lay no special claim to originality. 
They were prepared at first for tliose to benefit 
whom the writer was accustomed to read works 
on the Scriptures, as well as study the Scriptures 
themselves ; and they are now sent to the press at 
the urgent request of a dear friend, who, benefited 
himself by the truths they set forth, desires that 
others also may be partakers of his joy. 

The fact that cold water from the mossy spring 
quenches thirst, irrespective of the value of the 
cup that conveys it to the lips of the weary trav- 
eller, has been an encouragement to comply with 
the request, though not even the costliest human 
setting would be worthy of the divine jewels of 
the truth as it is in Jesus. 



COXTEiTTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

LOOKING UNTO JESUS 9 



CHAPTER II. 
FIRST WITNESS FOR CHRIST 20 

CHAPTER III. 
WALKING WITH CHRIST 31 

CHAPTER lY. 
THE DESERT PRISON; OR, SHUT UP TO CHRIST . 43 

CHAPTER Y. 

CHRIST PRESENTS HIS PEOPLE UNBLAMABLE IN 
THE SIGHT OF GOD .55 

CHAPTER YI. 

FOR CHRIST'S SAKE 63 

V 



VI CONTENTS, 

CHAPTER y 1 1 . 
COMPLETE ACCEPTANCE THROUGH CHRIST . . 72 

CHAPTER YIII. 
VITAL UNION WITH CHRIST .87 

CHAPTER IX. 
ABIDING LIFE IN CHRIST 99 

C H A P T E R X . 
THE HUMAN SYMPATHY OF CHRIST .... 114 

CHAPTER XI. 
THE MUNIFICENCE OF CHRIST 128 

CHAPTER XII. 
SERVING CHRIST 142 

CHAPTER XIII. 
IMITATING CHRIST IN DOING GOOD .... 155 

CHAPTER XI Y. 
WE WOULD SEE JESUS 167 

CHAPTER XY. 
THE SAVING GRACE OF CHRIST 181 



CONTENTS, VII 

CHAPTER XYI. 
CHRIST IN THE ASSEMBLIES OF HIS PEOPLE . 192 

CHAPTER X y 1 1 . 
FALLING ASLEEP IN JESUS 209 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

CHRIST OUR SHEPHERD ON EARTH .... 223 

CHAPTER XIX. 

CHRIST OUR SHEPHERD IN HEAVEN .... 239 

CHAPTER XX. 
PRAYER FOR CHRIST 251 



**0 EYES that are weaiy, and hearts that are sore! 
Look off unto Jesus, now sorrow no more ! 
The light of his countenance shine th so bright 
Tliat here, as in heaven, there need be no night. 

**And there shall I know the full beauty and grace 
Of Jesus, the light of that glorious place ; 
Shall know how his love went before me each day, 
And wonder that ever m}^ eyes turned away." 



GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 



o>»<o 



CHAPTER I. 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 



C^3^Q^ 1 E love to gaze on noted scenes in nature. 
We would look at Niagara from this 
side and from that, and still change the 
point of view, that we may catch a new aspect of 
the wondrous scene. We also love to look on the 
likeness of a public benefactor ; and in some cases 
one portrait does not satisfy us. We want to see 
the Father of his Country, not only as the first 
President of the Eepublic, but as he led the army 
of the Eevolution, and as previous to that he trav- 
ersed the wilderness ; besides that, we search out 
the pictures painted by different artists, for each 
has preserved its own expression of the well-known 
face. 

What is thus true of the notabilities of nature 
and of history is also true of Christ. We glance at 



10 GLIMPSES OF CHMIST. 

other things, only to come back with more intense 
desire to him ; for, however they may interest for a 
time, they do not satisfy: the mind may receive 
new ideas, but the soul starves. In Christ alone 
we find abiding satisfaction; without him, w^e are 
like men working, it may be, amid beautiful and 
fragrant flowers, but starving for want of food. 

In holy Scripture God provides for this craving 
of the renewed soul varied presentations of Christ, 
each different, but all overflowing with blessing ; 
fountains ever sending forth the w^ater of life. He 
is set before ns as the Messiali to come ; he is the 
atoning Saviour, or he is the Son of man, — a loving 
brotlier among the sons of men ; or he is the Prince 
and Saviour, exalted at the riglit hand of God to 
give repentance and remission of sins. At one 
time he is the Shepherd, and again the High Priest ; 
but on earth or in heaven, in human form or in the 
glory of the Father, ever the same divine source 
and support of our spiritual life. 

So in Isaiah he says, "Look unto me, and be ye 
saved." But some may ask, how do we know that 
Christ says this, when there is no mention of his 
name? Manj^ passages in this prophet that seem 
to speak of the absolute God really speak of Christ. 
We had never thought of that grand description of 
the divine Majesty, seated on a throne high and 
lifted up, amid radiant seraphim and heavenly glory, 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 11 

as a glimpse of our Saviour. But the Holy Ghost 
tells us that iu that vision Isaiah beheld his glory. 

And if no man hath seen God at any time, how 
can this be an invitation to look on what is not to be 
seen? If the only-begotten Son who is in the 
bosom of the Father hath declared him, how can 
this be anything else than a call to look on that 
brightness of the Father s glory ; and if, out of 
Christ, God is a consuming fire, what mockery 
would it be to call on us to look unto such a one in 
order to be saved ! 

" Look unto m6," he said, as a person, not a thing ; 
a living, loving heart, not a mere idea. Can an ab- 
straction speak, or can it save? Many speak of 
religion as something that they are to procure for 
themselves as they vv^ould procure medicine at the 
apothecary's, or as some change which they are to 
produce in themselves, as they w^ould change their 
working for their Sunday clothes. They speak of 
religion doing this or that for us, as if it had a life 
of its own, and could perform acts of love. They 
exhort others to get religion, as if it were a treasure 
to be heaped together as men gather dollars, while 
all the time Jesus stands unheeded, and his "Look 
unto me " is unheard. 

The w^ord "reliction " occurs onlv five times in our 
Bible. In two of these what is rendered "the 
Jews' relio'ion" is in the orio-inal "Judaism." When 



12 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

Paul speaks of "living after the straitest sect of his 
religion/' it is literally "of our worshipping," that 
is, our mode of rendering worship to God. When 
James says, "That man's religion is vain, who 
bridleth not his tongue," the meaning is, that, 
whether Jew or Gentile, in that case his Judaism or 
his Heathenism is alike worthless. There only re- 
mains the noted declaration, "Pure religion and un- 
defiled before God and the Father is this : to visit 
the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to 
keep himself unspotted from the world." Here it is 
not said that religion does so and so, as if it were a 
fourth person in the trinity, but it is itself the doing 
this and that. Pure and unclefiled service to God is 
to act thus and thus ; and even this service is not to 
be rendered in our own strength, but in the grace 
which is in 'Christ Jesus. Paul saith, "Christ 
strengthening me, I can do all things," and so our 
Saviour teaches, " Without me ye can do nothing." 
Religion cannot save us. It is not the piety of 
Christians that brings them to heaven, but it is 
Jesus Christ, and their piety is the beginning of the 
salvation wrought in them by his grace. 

As little is it the truth that saves : that only 
makes us wise unto salvation. It tells us of, and 
introduces us to, the Saviour. So he says himself, 
"Search the Scriptures, for they testifj^ of me." We 
purify ourselves in obeying the truth which bids us 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS, 13 

believe on Christ. God sanctifies us through the 
truth which reveals Christ ; but always and in every- 
thing it is Christ alone that saves. No step is 
taken by us toward heaven only as his hand leads 
and his right hand upholds us. 

It ma}^ seem to some that this teaching is too 
precise; but when, on the one hand, Christ says, 
''Look unto me and be ye saved," and on the 
other, the mere mention of salvation is a signal for 
every one to turn to his own way of obtaining it, 
is there no need to hold up Christ as the Saviour? 
This lookino^ for salvation from reli<?ion robs Christ 
of his glory. It sends inquirers away from the 
only Saviour, and makes even the religious experi- 
ence of true Christians unsatisfactory. Such views 
lead to the feeling that our salvation depends upon 
our successful performance of this, and right im- 
provement of that, till the soul, alive to the interest 
at stake, and its own weakness, sinks into despair, 
or lives in a state of chronic anxiety. 

If m\j are thus heavy laden, let them listen to 
this voice of Jesus : "Look unto one; not to repent- 
ance or to faith, but to me, the giver of repentance 
and the author of faith ; not to piety, but to me, 
the source of all piety in earth or heaven. Search 
in truth for me, and not lor spiritual machinery to 
be operated hy your own strength." Study the gos- 
pel as jon would go into a garden where you ex- 

2 



14 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

poet to meet a friend Look among those flowers 
and fruits, not for a balm wbieh you are to apply, 
but for One who forgiveth all thine iniquities. Let 
nothing come between our soul and him. There is 
one mediator between us and God, but none at 
all between us and Christ. His voice in Scripture 
is, come to me directly ; come to me always ; come 
to me in everything ; and behold in me your 
Saviour, able to save to the uttermost, and saving 
you for mine own name's sake. 

If looking to religion and to the truth crushes us 
with a sense of our helplessness, this ^^Look unto 
7726 " of our Redeemer fills us with joy and peace. 
It is as if he lifted off our burden with his own 
hand and "took it on himself, Avhile he walks with 
us, working all things for us and in us, according to 
the riches of his grace. It brings the peace of God 
into the heart, when w^e look away, from the magni- 
tude of the work and our own helplessness, to Him 
who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all 
that we ask or think. 

Do we ask, "How can I gain access to such a 
Saviour?" he answers, ^^ Look unto me." There is 
a peculiar meaning in that word " look," which 
does not appear in our translation. In English we 
have both a verb and a noun in the word " face ; " 
the noun is that which looks, and the verb implies a 
turning about so as to look. It is precisely so in the 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 15 

Hebrew ; and here we have the verb . The text 
reads literally "face," or, as we would say, "face 
about to me." In recent times the term has become 
only too familiar. It is as if Jesus said, "You have 
been poring over j^our sins; now look to me, the 
Deliverer from sin. You have dwelt painfully on 
your need of salvation ; now see in me your Saviour. 
You have tried other modes, and the more you tried 
them, the more you found that sin abounded; now 
turn to me, not as a new mode whereby you are to 
save yourself, — no, not even to a divine mode, but 
simply to me as the Saviour, who saves his people 
from their sins." We may not understand all that 
must be done in order to salvation, or we may 
not see how it can be done. Our apprehensions 
of the magnitude and difficulty of the work may be 
very inadequate. "No matter," says this word of 
Jesus; "leave the method, and the working out of 
the method, all to me. Though your mind cannot 
grasp the great work of redemption, mine takes in 
the whole of it in its remotest connections. Though 
your strength is inadequate, mine is sufficient. Fix 
your eye and trust on me, your Saviour, and let all 
anxiety disappear as you gaze on me, and the work 
which I perform for you." 

Let us follow the leading of this good word of 
Christ, and look at his power to save. It is power 
over all flesh to give eternal life to his people ; all 



.16 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

power in heaven and on earth ; power over all the 
hosts of our great adversary ; power to subdue all 
thhigs unto himself, even the pride, selfishness, and 
unbelief of our hearts ; power even to raise our bodies 
from the grave, and fashion them like unto his glori- 
ous body ; power to make us more than conquerors, 
and then present us holy and unreprovable before 
the throne. Does not the very sight of such power 
give peace? 

Look at his love. No earthly relation can wor- 
thily illustrate it. Combine the love of father, hus- 
band, brother, friend ; and all together fall infinitely 
short of his. "Greater love hath no man than this, 
that a man lay down his life for his friends." So said 
Jesus, lovingly losing sight of what we are in our- 
selves, and seeing only u^hat his grace had done for 
us. Paul describes it thus : "Scarcely for a sternly 
upright man wall one die, yet peradventure for a 
kind-hearted man some would even dare to die ; 
but God commendeth his love toward us in that 
while we w^ere yet sinners Christ died for us." 
Here is a picture of love that never fades. Its 
beauty and power do not depend on words, for they 
go beyond all w^ords. 

Then look also at the manifold relations of Christ, 
to us. He is the Judge ; and if he acquit us who 
shall condemn? He is the Shepherd who watches 
over us on earth, and the Intercessor who pleads for 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 17 

US ill heaven. The Father hath given all things into 
his hands, hears all his requests, and ajiproves of all 
he does. May not such a one say, " He that loveth 
me shall be loved of my Father, and we will come 
unto him and make our abode with liini"? 

Look also at his relations to the Holy Ghost. 
Nothing short of a Divine Sanctifier can make us 
holy ; and the Hol}^ Spirit sent by the Son perfectly 
sympathizes with that Son. There is not a sinner 
loved of Christ who is not also loved of the Spirit, 
and for whom he does not delight to exercise his 
power to sanctify. 

Christ, then, is a glorious Saviour. Looking unto 
him is a simple act ; but some are troubled about 
the manner of their looking. Yes, our looking 
unto him is as unw^orthy as our persons, and they 
are more unworthy than we think they are ; but sal- 
vation does not depend on the perfection of our look- 
ing, but on that of the Saviour to whom we look. 
When the clying Hebrew looked at the brazen 
serpent, his cure did not depend on the perfection 
of the view he obtained of it. Distance may have 
dimmed its outline ; age may have bleared his 
eyesight; some other sufferer may have partly 
come between ; but if he only looked at all, he 
was made whole : and so here. If the Israelite, 
after he was healed, gazed with mingled gratitude 
and wonder on the inanimate means of his cure. 



18 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

how should we conthiue to look unto and love this 
loving Saviour ! Is it any wonder that Mary sat 
at his feet, so entranced she was not conscious 
that hor sister was left to serve alone ? 

" My willing soul would stay 
In such a frame as this, 
And sit and sing herself away 
To everlasting bliss." 

Then let us call off our thoughts from everything 
else to fix them on Christ; let us not think of the 
manner of our looking ; let us see only Him to 
w^iom we look, and so rejoice in the Lord always. 

But some one, deeply conscious of unworthiness 
to look unto such a Saviour, asks, ^' Are you sure 
that we may thus look?" Hear his own words: 
"Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise 
in your hearts? Behold my hands and feet, that it 
is I myself. Handle me and see ; " and yet again : 
"Peace be unto you ! Reach hither thy finger, and 
behold \nj hands ; and reach hither thy ha,nd, and 
thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but 
believing." Christ would have us to-day be partak- 
ers of the joy of those who conversed with him on 
earth. He had us in his thoughts when he said, 
"Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have 
believed." 

But what is the result of this looking:? Not that 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 19 

wc shall thereby save ourselves, performing an act 
so meritorious that salvation is its reward ; — nothing 
of that ; but He who gives himself to the vision of 
our faith, with that favor gives salvation also. 
"Look unto me and be ye saved," — not as a result 
which you work out ; but I shall command salvation, 
and it shall come to you ; or, since sidvation is no 
more a person than religion is, I myself will be 
your Saviour, and save you even while you look. 
And if Jesus saves us, we are saved. 

Be it ours to hold fast this confidence and re- 
joicing of hope firm unto the end. This looking to 
Jesus must be constant, till, instead of the object of 
faith, we shall behold him on the throne. From 
the first step of the race set before us, even to the 
last, let us run looking unto Jesus. It is only while 
we behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord that 
we are changed into the same image. If he is the 
alpha of our first look, he is also the omega of our 
last. Only as we continue looking unto him do w^e 
rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. 

Thus may we live the whole life that we live in the 
flesh ; in death, like Stephen, look up steadfastly and 
see Jesus standing on the right hand of God ; and 
then go to enjoy forever the ansv/erto that petition : 
" Father, I will that they also w'hom thou hast given 
me be with me where I am, that they may behold 
mv 2"i-'rv." 



CHAPTER II. 

FIRST WITNESS FOR CHRIST. 

G^ HE character of Abel is peculiaily interest- 

(Vr / '^^^S* ^'^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^"^ fallen race to taste of 
death, and the first of the redeemed to en- 
ter heaven ; he was the first fruits of that great 
harvest that shall forever reward the sufferings of 
our Eedeemer. The consideration of his character 
is so intimately connected with his sacrifice, that, in 
order to understand the one, we mnst first under- 
stand the other. 

What, then, is a sacrifice? All will agree that it 
is "a form of worship;" for all admit that in this 
way men have been used to worship. But what is 
the origin of the custom ? Its antiquity and general 
diftusion indicate that it is from God, and the well- 
known principle that God accepts no worship which 
himself did not appoint confirms this. If prayer 
was only a mode of approaching God which man had 
devised for himself, he could expect no other recep- 
tion for his supplications than that curt one accorded 
to the wicked : " Who hath reqnired this at your 

20 



FIRST IFITNESS FOR CHRIST. 21 

hand?" God hears prayer because he from the 
begiiiiihig appointed this way of approach to him- 
self, and his Spirit led man to walk in it. We hear 
sometimes of new modes of worship ; but let the 
inventive genius of the age devise a mode as yet 
unheard of, and reason would at once decide that it 
is not fitting for the sinner to dictate in w^hat vv^ay 
he shall draw near to God. 

"In vain," saith Christ, "do they worship me, 
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." 
The tabernacle and the vessels of the sanctuary 
were accepted only as they were made according 
to the pattern shown in the mount. 

Those two hundred and fifty princes of the assem- 
bly, famous hi the congregation, men of renown, who 
insisted that their ideas should override the divine 
appointment, were consumed in the act of present- 
ing their self-willed worship; and even David, 
thouo:h it was in his heart to do rioht, was not 
accepted, when only through inadvertence he sub- 
stituted beasts of burden for the divinely appointed 
bearers of the ark. 

In view of these things, is it likely that sacrifice 
was a mode of worship devised by man ? 

All agree, not only that sacrifice was an act of 
worship, but that it consisted in slaughtering animals 
and then burning their bodies on the altar. Now, 
would man left to himself, ever dream that destroy- 



22 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

ing the creatures God had made, was the way in 
which to please huii? that butchering innocent 
animals was an act likely to procure God's blessing 
for the man that did it? Had we never heard of 
sacrifice, would we ever dream of propitiating God 
in that way ? Yet we are familiar with the idea of 
killing animals for food ; but to Abel such a thing 
was unknown. Not till the days of Noah did God 
give flesh to be food for man. So strange did the 
institution of sacrifice seem to men in ancient times, 
that, even though familiar with it from childhood, 
and history did not reach back to a time when it 
did not exist, still the old Greek philosophers 
wondered on what principle so strange a custom 
could have originated. The more we look, the 
more we shall be satisfied that nothing short of a 
divine command could lead men to think of so 
strange a method of serving God ; if, indeed, it 
did not also require some explanation of its mean- 
ing to induce them to engage in it even then. Go 
and tell a child that the way for him to secure the 
favor of God is to kill little lambs ; and see his 
looks of surprise and wonder at the announcement ! 
But if this was a divine command, and hints were 
given of reasons for it such as could not then be 
fully understood, we can see how it would separate 
between the righteous and tiie wicked ; for the 
requirements of God are always so framed as to 



FinST WITXESS FOR CHRIST, 23 

call forth unbelief and rebellion where they exist, 
and at the same time afford exercise for foith and 
obedience. 

It was through distrustful thoughts of God that 
man had just fallen, and incurred the loss of Eden ; 
therefore it was fitting that preparation to enter 
the heav^enly paradise should educate a trusting 
submission. 

Some may object that there is no record of such 
a requirement. True ; and so there is no command 
to observe the Lord's day, or to love our sisters, or 
to admit women to the Lord's table. But if, after 
eighty-five chapters had been devoted to three 
years of the life of Christ on earth, the inspired 
writer could close the whole by saying : ^^ There 
are also many other things which Jesus did, the 
which, if they should be written every one, I sup- 
pose that even the world itself could not contain 
the books," is it likely that six short chapters in 
Genesis contain the whole of the events that trans- 
pired in the one thousand six hundred and fifty-five 
years previous to the flood ? And if it is said that 
this institution of sacrifice was an important event, 
could six chapters tell even all the important events 
of so long a period? Can there be a more unfair 
method of interpreting the first six chapters of 
Genesis than to assume that nothing took place 
except what is recorded ? In that case, as there is 



24 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

nothing said of the apostasy of fallen angels, we 
must conclude that there was none ; as there is no 
mention of death previous to the fall, we must infer 
that there had been none, and that, therefore, 
Adam could not understand the penalty denounced 
agauist this transgression ; or that because it is not 
expressly said that God made him understand it, 
therefore he did not; that consequently Adam 
incurred ignorantly the most tremendous punish- 
ment that ^^man could suffer," and that God, know- 
ing he was thus ignorant, nevertheless inflicted it. 
Let these serve as specimens of the absurdities 
such a principle would involve. 

We conclude, then, that the omission of the 
record of the original institution of sacrifices is 

o 

no evidence that it was not from God. He who 
created man to serve him would not leave him 
ignorant of the way to do so. He who intended 
to lead man to his Saviour throuo-h this institu- 
tion would not leave the discovery of it to chance. 
Even leaving Abel out of the question, what 
would be our own ideas of redemption, or of 
its mode of operation, without this divine symbol? 
Go, find the Christian to-day, pre-eminently led 
of the Spirit into the knowledge of an atoning 
Saviour, whose most precious views of Christ have 
not come throui^h this divine ordinance. We are 
learners in the same school where Abel was taught 



FIRST WITXESS FOR CHRIST, 25 

of God. In the catalo^fue of its alumni his name 

o 

stands the first. 

We are now prepared to advance another step, 
and inquire into the meaning of sacrifice. It is a 
divinely appointed form of worship ; but what is its 
import? If any one replies, it is a mere ex- 
pression of gratitude, let him tell us how slaughter- 
ing innocent victims expresses gratitude. What is 
there in sheddiusr the blood of lambs, and burning: 
their flesh with fire, suggestive* of thankfulness ? 
Is this the way a child would express love to his 
benefactor? Or why did Job ofter burnt-offer- 
ings whenever he feared lest his sous had sinned 
and cursed God in their hearts ? 

Is it said that sacrifices did sometimes express 
joy and praise? Yes ; but only when expiation had 
prepared the way for it. After the sin-offering had 
made atonement, other offerings followed in con- 
nection with it, expressive of the joy that a sinner 
feels when reconciled to God. 

It is a suofofestive fact that we read of no sacrifices 
beino^ offered in Paradise. Not till man had been 
driven forth from Eden do we see the smoke of his 
sacrifice ascendinsf from the altar. Within the 
garden he needed only to offer the worship of adora- 
tion and praise. But now that he is a wanderer in 
the earth cursed for his sake, aware of the penalty 
that he has incurred, and conscious that he deserves 
3 



26 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

it, what more fitting worship caa he offer than that 
which confesses the justice of his sentence and 
brings the appointed substitute to die in his stead ; 
thus surrendering himself absoUitely to God through 
that substitute in hope of promised forgiveness? 
Take away the divine appointment of the victim 
and the giving of the promise, and the observance 
is presumptuous ; but with these, it is a most fitting 
expression of penitence and trust; nothing could 
more appropriately express such feelings. 

Let us try to look in on the first sacrifice. Man, 
already tasting the bitter fruits of sin, seeing them 
all around him, meeting them at every step in his 
daily life, feels the pressure of his guilt. Left to 
himself he would flee from the presence of the God 
whom he has disobeyed ; but the Lord speaks to 
him unexpected words of comfort. He promises a 
future deliverer. He appoints a worship symbolical 
of that deliverance. So, under divine guidance, 
Adam builds the altar, selects the victim, and 
with trembling hand inflicts the fatal stroke. What 
thouo'hts of his own deservino-s crowd on him as he 
watches that gasping breath, those quivering limbs, 
and then the flames consumino; the lifeless form? 
Does he not at once see the greatness of his own 
guilt and of divine mercy? And, as the truth 
pervades his heart, "Thus am I to be forgiven 
through the sufferings of a victim yet to come,'' 



FIRST WITXESS FOR CHRIS T. 27 

does he not feel, " Though I do not yet fully under- 
stand all the mysteries of that deliverance, yet 
trustingly do I thus surrender my forfeited life to 
God, that in his own way I may receive it back 
ao^aiu accordino^ to his word " ? 

Thus in this ordinance, man made a continual 
acknowledgment of his guilt, and confession of his 
faith. The first sin was a rebellious attempt at 
independence of God ; here is the profoundest 
acknowledgment of dependence on sovereign grace. 
That sin was an inexcusable mistrust of God ; here 
is an entire surrender to him, in implicit confidence 
of the fulfilment of his promise ; that, too, when its 
fulfilment is not only in the distant future, but even 
the manner of it jet unrevealed, save as it is 
dimly foreshadowed by this ordinance. 

These views are strikingly confirmed by the testi- 
mony of the Scripture, that "by faith Abel ofifered 
unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain ; " for 
how can a man have faith, except there is some- 
thing to be believed? Or how can a man show 
faith in God by performing an act, save as God 
commands that act, and its performance is clifiacult 
or disasrreeable to those who have not faith ? Does 
not the Scripture then teach us that God ordained 
the oj9rering of sacrifices, and Abel observed the 
divine ordinance in a spirit of obedient faith? Any 
change in the offering, or in the manner appointed, 



28 GLIMPSES OF CBRIST, 

bad shown a want of the obedience of faith ; and it 
was precisely because there was no such change that 
God had regard to his offering and not to that of 
his brother. 

Abel was willing to let God choose how he would 
be served. Cain would serve God in his own way, 
or not at all. Abel confessed, in the appointed way, 
that on account of his sin he deserved to die, and 
could be saved only through the substitution of 
another. Cain would make no such confession. 
He was as good as anybody, and demanded that 
God should accept service from him just as he was, 
without an atonement. Abel was willing to be 
saved in any way God should mark out for him. 
Cain would not admit that he needed salvation; 
especially did he refuse to ask for life in a way 
that acknowledged his own was forfeited. 

On the other hand, Abel did not " obtain witness 
that he was ri<2:hteoos" in the sense of absolute 
freedom from sin, — for "there is not a just man upon 
earth that doeth good and sinneth not ; " but in the 
sense in which sinners who comply with God's 
method of justification are accepted as righteous 
for Christ's sake. Paul uses the term ^^ righteous" 
to denote the legal status of sinners who are made 
the righteousness of God in Christ, and in every 
age that sinner becomes I'ighteous who accepts the 
divine method of salvation. It w^as so with the 



FIRST IVTTXESS FOR CHRIST. 29 

Jew who brought the required ofFeruig in faith. It 
is so to-dny with the sinner who receives Jesiis 
Christ by fiiith. 

A thoughtful mind cannot but be deeply impressed 
with the truth, that a sinner in the first generation 
after the fall obtains witness that he is righteous, by 
offering a sacrifice m faith, just as we jnust obtain 
the same witness to-day. There is a slight difference 
in the outward form, but none at all in the inward 
spirit, none at all in the ground of acceptance. 
Those firstlings of his flock were accepted, because 
offered in faith of the propitiation God had promised ; 
and we present to God the one offering which Christ 
has made, "whom God hath set forth to be a pro- 
pitiation through faith in his blood." Then as now, 
and now as then, it is only the Lamb of God that 
taketh awa}^ the sins of the world. Then as now, 
and now as then, there is none other name under 
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. 
Whoever is tired of the old story of the cross, let 
him come and see how the first sinner that ever 
passed from earth to heaven found favor with God. 
I^othing is said of innocence, but he obtains witness 
that he is righteous, through compliance with the 
method God had appointed to unite him to Christ. 
Compliance and non-compliance here was the turning- 
point between Abel and his murderer, and to-day it 
is the turning-point where the feet of those who enter 
3* 



30 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

heaven separate from those who go down to the 
second death. 

The ideas of Abel about salvation on earth may- 
have been very dim ; but who shall describe his 
first interview with his Saviour, as he ascended 
from that field of blood ? How far did the glory of 
his Redeemer surpass his highest thoughts of re- 
demption, and with what joy did the Son of God 
welcome that first fruit of the blood which speaketh 
better things than that of Abel ! 



CHAPTER III. 

WALKING WITH CHRIST. 

^|T/NOCH was boru five thousand two hundred 
^f \j and forty-eight years ago. Perhaps few of 
us form a definite idea of so long a time, for 
it covers a period equivalent to one hundred and 
seventy-five of our modern generations. We look 
back to the beginning of the Revolution as to a dis- 
tant point ; but the birth of this man took place 
more than fifty-eight times farther back. Martin 
Luther was born before the discovery of America ; 
but this man was born nearly fourteen times longer 
ago than Martin Luther. He died sixty-nine years 
before Xoah was born, or six hundred and sixty- 
nine years before the deluge. The world was only 
six hundred and twenty-two years old when Enoch 
began to live in it, and he lived three hundred and 
eight years contemporary with Adam. We do not 
know how often they saw each other, or how much 
they conversed together ; we do not know how far 
they lived apart ; but we are very safe in saying that, 
amid the wide-spread degeneracy of his descendants, 

81 



32 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

our first parent must have enjoyed very much the 
society of a man who walked with God. It must 
have comforted him with the assurance that a future 
restoration to Paradise was not impossible ; and 
Enoch in turn must have loved the society of the only 
man who could tell him about a w^orld without sin. 

In heaven to-day Adam and Enoch must watch 
with peculiar interest the progress of the kingdom 
of Christ. How often do they compare their earthly 
anticipations of what would be, with their heavenly 
observation of what has been and now is ! Such 
words come unbidden ; for who can speak of a good 
man who has been four thousand eight hundred and 
eighty-three years in heaven, without thinking more 
of where he is to-day, than of the few j'ears he 
spent here below ? We may not say which one of 
the redeemed we should prefer to see, where each 
will have so much to say about Christ, and be able 
to present views so different from those that we now 
have of the same unchanging Saviour; but, if 
God's grace ever introduces us among them, shall 
we not have a special joy in hearing from the lips 
of Enoch how he could maintain so close a walk 
with God in circumstances so unfavorable ? 

At present, however, we have to do with the lit- 
tle we can learn about him from sources now within 
reach ; for, in looking back to his day, we look 
beyond the dawn of history. Herodotus, the father 



JVALKTXG WITH CHRIST. 83 

of secular history, Avas born almost twentj^-nine 
hundred j'cars after Enoch. The only account 
T\'e have of him is contained in the most ancient and 
trustworthy of all books, written by holy men of 
old, as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Scrip- 
ture, however, answers very few of those questions 
which we naturally ask concerning the good of 
other days. It makes no mention of the place of 
his birth. It does not tell us what mountains looked 
down on his boyhood, or in wdiat fields he enjoyed 
his yonthful sports. We know not the nature of 
his occupation, or the amount of his possessions. 
There is no mention of those pleasant details that 
make the pages of biography so attractive. All we 
know is comprised in tvro facts : " he vralkcd with 
God," or, as it is expressed in another place, ''he 
pleased God," and " he was not, for God took him ; " 
or, as elsewhere explained, " he was translated that 
he should not see death." These are the things re- 
membered in heaven, and selected from amono- all 
the rest to be recorded of him by the Ho]\^ Ghost. 
He was a man whose walk was so close Vv^ita God, 
that, in his case alone, among all the millions who 
lived before the flood, the sentence of death was 
remitted. 

Not till two thousand one hundred and twenty- 
one years after, was another found w^orthy of the 
same favor ; and thongh two thousand seven hundred 



84 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

and sixty-two years have elapsed since Elijah left 
the world, none save these two have ever been so 
highly favored. It may prepare us to appreciate 
his walk with God, if we consider the circumstances 
under which such a life was spent. 

He had no Bible. Moses, the first inspired 
writer of whom we have any knowledge, — for the 
author of the book of Job is uncertain, — was not 
born till one thousand eight hundred and eleven 
years after Enoch ; almost as long as it is now since 
the birth of Christ. Not only was there no portion 
of the Bible in existence in the days of Enoch, but 
we have no evidence of the existence at that time 
of any written document. 

Noah told his children the things that he knew 
concerning Adam, and Paradise, and Cain, and 
Abel, and this same Enoch, whom Noah must have 
loved, for he, too, walked with God. Think of 
Enoch livino; such a life without a Bible. In his 
closet, no well-thumbed copy of the Word ; in his 
journeys, no sacred Scriptures carried among his 
other provisions for the way ; in his family devotions 
and in his preaching, no holy book to pour its divine 
light on the hearers. Was Enoch, then, sanctified 
without the truth ? And may we look for a sancti- 
fication independent of Holy Scripture? Not so, for 
that same Scripture tells us that " God, at sundry 
times, and in divers manners, spake in time past 



WALKING WITH CHRIS T. 35 

unto the fathers." He spoke personally to Jacob 
at Bethel, and to Abraham in his tent ; and just as 
he manifested himself to these, so did he to Noah. 
Is it likely that Enoch was left without such direct 
teachings from heaven, when long before him God 
had walked with Adam in the garden, and talked 
with Cain, even after that murder in the field? 
That good man had no written word, but doubtless 
the word of the Lord came to him as afterwards to 
Ezekiel, and through that word he was sanctified in 
answer to the prayer of Christ. Those personal 
communications from God may have revealed fiir 
less than is now made known to us. No psalms 
aided his devotion ; no glad tidings of Christ, and 
redemption through his blood, thrilled his soul ; no 
Gospel of John or Epistle of Paul quickened his 
spiritual life ; but the little then made known gave 
such a glimpse of the same truths as sufficed to 
maintain in his heart this walk with God. It is as 
if the Lord would show us how much may result 
from a little of the truth as it is in Jesus, that we 
may be stirred up the more to search the Scriptures 
which testify of Christ. 

Enoch seems to have enjoyed very little of that 
help which is found in the society of good men. We 
do not know how much he had of this. We Avould not 
forget that, though just before the flood the wicked- 
ness of man was great in the earth, so that it re- 



oQ GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

pentecl God that he had created him, and the flood 
of wickedness needed the waters of the deluo^e to 
wash it away, yet that antediluvian world lasted one 
thousand six hundred and fifty-five years, — longer 
than from the birth of Christ to the landing of the 
Pilgrims at Plymouth. Enoch lived as long before 
the flood, as the renowned Saladin before us. Look 
back to the times of the third crusade, to the Avar 
of extermination waged by Popery against the Albi- 
genses, and you look back just as far as Noah did 
when from the door of the Ark he looked back to 
the days of Enoch. True, Enoch was his- great 
grandparent ; but it would need only six such lives 
as that of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, to reach 
from the creation to our own times. It would, then, 
be just as wrong to attribute the character of the 
world at the time of the flood to the days of Enoch, 
as it would be to transfer the character of this age 
to that of Saladin and of Dominic, the founder of 
the Inquisition. 

The Bible, however, gives no account of any ad- 
vance of piety in the days of Enoch. On the con- 
trary, so great had been the declension that he was 
called on to speak of the Lord coming " with ten 
thousand of his holy ones, to execute judgment 
upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly 
among men, of all their ungodly deeds which they had 
mgodly committed, and of all their hard speeches 



WALKING WITH CHRIST. 37 

which ungodly sinners had spoken against him." In 
his day, then, we are warranted in saying that the 
mass of community was not only wicked, but defiant 
in wiclvcdness. Men not only gave themselves up 
to crime, but boldly blasphemed God, and set them- 
selves openly against divine restraints. 

Among such men the position of a devout man 
was not very enviable ; he met with no sympathy, 
but rather hatred, if not indeed downright violence. 

It is very striking that the circumstances of Elijah 
were very similar, who complained to God : " Israel 
hath forsaken the covenant, thrown down thine 
altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword, and I, 
I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it 
away." Then, without waiting to inquire what it is 
to walk with God, we say boldly to every man who 
excuses himself from such a life, because his circam- 
stances are unfavorable, that this is no excuse at all. 
Unfavorable they may be ; but, if they were ten 
times more so, they would not be so unfavorable as 
either those of Enoch or Elijah ; and 3 et they were 
both pre-eminent for their piety. Then, let outward 
things be as they may, they can excuse no man for 
being ungodly. It would seem as though God had 
selected two men in such situations, and made them 
models of holy living, that every mouth might be 
stopped from pleading outward circumstances as an 
excuse for ungodliness. But what was the walking 



38 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

with God maintained amid so much that Avas ad- 
verse ? 

Enoch, like every other man, was by nature a child 
of wrath. His first requisite, then, to communion 
with God was an atonement for his sin. Before 
God could look on him with complacence he must 
be cleansed from guilt. Enoch did not know 
Christ, but like Abel he offered unto God sacrifices 
" by which he obtained witness that he was right- 
eous," and so. like Noah " became heir of the right- 
eousness which is by faith." Men may have an 
idea that Enoch deserved translation by his good 
woi^ks ; but what saith the Scripture ? " Before his 
translation he had this testimony, that he pleased 
God ; but without faith it is impossible to please 
him." Enoch, then, was an eminently good man; 
but the whole of his piety was built upon the foun- 
dation of faith, and the ground of his acceptance 
with God was the righteousness which is by faith. 
Let none say within himself, then, "If I could only 
attain to the personal goodness of Enoch, then God 
would accept me ; " for God accepted him not merely 
because of his piety, but because of the foundation 
on which it stood. There Avas nothing of his own 
that could challenge blessing in itself. The holiest 
of his acts was accepted only in Christ, and on the 
ground of his redemption. 

And so, having this faith, he purified himself, even 



WALKING WITH CnUIST. 39 

as God is pure. Accepting reconciliation with God, 
he lived in communion with the God who had recon- 
ciled him to himself. Eecognizing the fact that by 
faith he had access into the grace of God, he 
entered into it and cleaved to God as his chosen 
good. Men might cast out his name as evil, but he 
only felt the more deeply, " Whom have I in 
heaven but thee, and there is none on earth that I 
desire besides thee." While the wicked around him 
looked hither and thither, crying, "Who will show us 
any good?" he rested in the one desire, "Lord, 
lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me." 
One thing he desired of the Lord, and that he 
sought after, that he might live all the days of his 
life beholding the beauty of the Lord, and enjoying 
fellowship with his Father in heaven. 

This desire showed itself, not only in frequent and 
fervent seasons of devotion, but in a careful avoid- 
ing of whatever would mar them. He could not 
give himself up to sin, and yet retain God ; so to 
retain God he gave up sin. It has been said we do 
not know whether Enoch was a rich man ; but we 
do know that he did not make wealth his chief 
object, for then he could not have walked with God. 
He sought earthly good just so far as it would sub- 
serve communion with God, and no further. 

He was like a foreign missionary in the midst of 
heathen that rage, and people that imagine a vain 



40 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

thing, only he was a self-supporting missionary. 
He drew his support from no society ; he rested on 
no prayers offered in distant lands. The Lord was 
the strength of his heart and his portion forever. 
Missionaries cut off from Christian fellowship, and 
shut up to God alone, have found such a life run- 
ning over with the purest enjoyment ; but Enoch 
knew such happiness long before they did, and 
knew more of it, as his dependence was even more 
absolute and entire than theirs. 

His walking with God did not make him a hermit 
or a monk. He had an earthly home, and a family, 
like other men, and supported them hy honest 
industry. So early did God teach men that a life 
of true piety was within the reach of all, and brand 
the hypocritical and mischievous celibacy of papal 
priests with divine reprobation. Three thousand 
three hundred and seventy-seven years before the 
apostle wrote, "Marriage is honorable in all," Enoch 
preached the same truth by his godly example. 

It may have seemed as though he could not live 
a godly life in that age at all, or that, if, ho began 
well, he would soon turn aside ; but the moment he 
stepped into right relations with God he found him- 
self in right relations with all about him, for all 
things worked together for his good, as they do for 
the good of every believer in every age. Had he 
no Bible ? That only made the personal instruction 



WALKIXG WITH cnnisT. 41 

of God the more prized, and that personal com- 
munion again bound him the more closely to God. 
Had he no human sympathy in his holy living? 
That also drew him the closer to God, for in him 
he found such sympathy and love and grace as made 
him independent of every other being. AYho is 
there to-day who fears to try to serve God lest the 
effort prove a failure? Enoch, though dead, yet 
speaketh to such, saying, " Cast loose from every- 
thing ; throw j'ourself wholly on God ; for only so can 
you be in harmony with all around you ; and the 
more perfectly you cleave to God, the more absolutely 
you depend on him, the more thoroughly are you in 
harmony with your outward lot." There are crooks 
and roughnesses, mysteries and difficulties, in that 
lot, that will not yield to human skill. But the mo- 
ment we take hold of God in Christ the crooked 
becomes straight, and the rough places plain. Hin- 
drances become helps, and the lions that seemed to 
stand in the way become the ministers of God to us 
for good. The most dreaded things are found to be 
divine provisions for our salvation. 

Christians sometimes debate the possibility of a 
steadfast continuance in holy living. Is such a 
matter open to debate ? What says the Scripture ? 
" Enoch walked with God, after he begat Methuselah, 
three hundred years." And is the power of God, 
that kept Enoch three hundred years, powerless to 



42 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

keep us for threescore and ten? Or is our standard 
of holy living higher than that of the Hol}^ Ghost ? 
Away with such unbelief! So long as the memory 
of that good man survives, Ave need never doubt 
God when he says, "My grace is sufficient for thee." 
Let our trials be what they may to-day ; let them 
be succeeded by others a hundred-fold more ter- 
rible ; he who kept Enoch is able also to keep 
us. He can save to the utteraiost; he can make us 
more than conquerors ; and the only thing that 
hinders the manifestation of the glory of his power 
to save us is our own unbelief. Let us be strong, 
then, in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. With 
that there is no possibility of failure. 

We have seen that the want of human sj^mpathy 
and the pressure of human opposition led Enoch 
into a richer experience of this grace of Christ on 
earth ; but what a contrast did he find between a 
frowning w^orld and that welcome into the joy of the 
Lord I How did those three hundred years of 
hatred on earth prepare him to appreciate the love 
of heaven ! Not only all that Enoch found in God 
on earth, but all that he has found in him these four 
thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years 
above, is ours in Christ. Even now faith may 
reach out its hand and gather in the whole as in- 
cluded in the inheritance to which we are joint-heirs 
with Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE DESERT PRISON; OR, SHUT UP TO CHRIST. 

(^? HE desert of Paraii lies between the Wady 
ftf ) el Arabah and the desert of Shur, and 
extends from Jebel et Tih, which stretches 
across the peninsula of Sinai, to the mountains 
south of Beersheba and Aroer. Israel entered it 
three years after leaving Egypt. The north-eastern 
part of it, marked Azazimeh on our best maps, is a 
high table-land very rarely visited, as the two 
routes from Egypt to Syria pass outside of it on 
the east and w^est. High ridges of bare chalk cliffs 
enclose a sandy waste nearly forty miles square 
within their mural precipices. These glow in the 
hot sun like a furnace, and the sand drinks up the 
stream from the large fountain of Kades before it 
has gone four hundred paces. 

Scattered over this desolate region is the camp of 
Israel; not a collection of tents uniform in size 
and shape, and standing in orderly rows around the 
Tabernacle ; here is rather the head-quarters of a 
population as large as our own at the commeuce- 

43 



44 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

ment of the Revolution. Such a multitude could 
not be crowded into a compact mass, except on a 
march, or in an encampment for a night; but here 
with flocks and herds they abode for the long space 
of thirty-seven years. So we may picture them as 
scattered irregularly over the Azazimeh, overflow- 
ing into the more extensive desert south and west, 
and pouring down the sides of the desert valleys 
that lead into the Arabah. Rude huts dot the hill- 
sides, and ruder shelters lean against the rocky 
sides of the glens. We may descry them here and 
there on the sandy waste, or perched upon the 
chalky cliffs. A region, before and since the home 
of desolation, was then instinct with life. 

Scripture gives a full account of the journey 
hither ; It describes minutely the road hence round 
by the borders of Edom ; but about the thirty-seven 
years spent here it tells us very little, except that 
out of the more than million adult men then livinsf, 
all, save two, were doomed to remain in this fright- 
ful wilderness till they died. Place yourself on 
some outstanding cliff* that commands the most ex.- 
tensive view of these bare rocks, this barren sand, 
these verdureless valleys ; then look round on 
these cheerless homes, and think of fathers and 
mothers, brothers and sisters, kept in this desert 
prison till they died. No outlet but the grave, 
save for two favored persons mentioned by name. 



THE DESERT PRISON; OR^ SHUT UP TO CHRIST. 45 

Never again shall these men and women look on 
fertile field or verdant meadow. Never again shall 
the}^ see a running brook or winding river. No 
grove or forest shall ever again gladden eyes 
blinded with the heat and glare of these arid wastes. 
The sight of a town embowered among trees, of a 
city reclining quietly on the shore of the great sea, 
shall never again be theirs. Those boj'S and girls 
now playing in the sand, or seeking shelter from 
the sun in the recesses of those rocky cliffs, must 
abide here till they have buried the last of a rebel- 
lious generation. 

Is not this one of the most appalling pictures of 
the evil of sin presented to us in the word of God? 
While the deluo:e and the destruction of Sodom are 
held up as examples of the ruin sin may work in this 
world, we marvel that this striking scene should 
be so generally passed over. It seems as though 
that mountain wall, inclosing on all sides that central 
plateau, and broken through at intervals by rocky 
passes into its inner desolation, was created on pur- 
pose to be the centre of this terrible judgment; 
and even now, w^hen that has retreated three thousand 
four hundred years into the obscurity of the past, 
the empty frame still remains for us to refill 
with the events of those thirty-seven years. One 
almost envies those who died first. What must 
have been the feelings of those who lived on, year 



46 GLIMPSES OF CRIilST. 

after year, their number gradually growing less, 
feeling all the while that those prison doors would 
not open till all were dead ? 

Then think again. It was pure, unmitigated 
judgment. There was not a whisper of pardon. 
The transgressors were shut up face to face w^ith 
death. It was nothing but death. There was no 
possibility of escape. They could not flee, singly, 
for what provision could they take for the long 
journey that lay between them and cultivated 
fields? They were also hemmed in by watchful 
foes, who would show no mercy to stragglers from 
that invading host. And should they resolve to 
march en masse, and cut their way through with the 
energy of despair ; they had already tried that, and 
found what it was to enter into battle without the 
Lord, yea, with Jehovah on the side of the Amalek- 
ites and Canaanites, that smote them and pursued 
them with slaughter even unto Hormah. Of all 
those hundreds of thousands only two could escape 
this punishment, for they had not shared in the sin 
that was punished. 

These multitudes might have objected that God 
had promised them the land of Canaan ; but they 
had to learn that obedience was the condition of its 
fulfilment, and that disobedience forfeited all. 

They might have pleaded that God, in bringing 
them out of Egypt, was under obligation to bring 



THE DESERT PRISON ,' OR, SHUT UP TO CHRIST, 47 

thein into a land at least equally as good. But they 
who refuse to have God for a leader cannot complain 
if they are left to eat of the fruit of their own ways. 

It is not necessary to specify the instances of 
their transsfression, and then brins^ forward aro^u- 
ments to prove that the punishment was just. It 
needs simply to state the ftxct that God inflicted 
those judgments in righteousness, and if, admitting 
the fact, any one questions the righteousness, let 
him settle that point with " Him with whom we have 
to do." 

The infidelity that denies the occurrence of such 
scenes in that wilderness is bold ; the infidelity 
that admits the facts, but denies their divine origin, 
is not less bold ; but boldest of all is he who admits 
that God was in them, and yet denies their justice. 
True poverty of spirit, while it leads us to confess 
that it is of the Lord's mercies ive are not con- 
sumed, also adores those marked instances of divine 
justice that occur just often enough to make us 
appreciate more abounding grace ; for, without such 
examples, we might fall into the popular belief that 
the divine forbearance with transsrressors was his 



"c 



dealin<2^ with them accordins; to their deserts. Such 
scenes as these in the wilderness of Parau are need- 
ful to make us appreciate the infinite long-suffering of 
the Lord. No one who has any right feeling toward 
God can rise up from the narrative of his dealings 



48 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

with Israel in the desert, without adnairiag divine 
lon2:-safferinor on the one side, and marvellhio; at 
intractable perversity on the other. 

No wonder the descendants of those evil-doers 
came to Ciirist with the question, "Are there few 
that be saved ? " The memory of those thirty-seven 
years in that wilderness must have burned itself in 
on the national conscience as few historical facts 
have ever impressed themselves upon any people. 
More than two million souls shut up in the heart of 
the desert, till of all then over twenty years of age 
only two came forth alive. Aaron, the priest of 
God, forms no exception, and even Moses was never 
allowed to set foot within the promised land. Was 
there ever a lesson in all history more strilving? 

Is this a solitary exception to the general current 
of history ; or does it embody a principle that runs 
through the ages, — at least, until the dawning 
of the latter day? Few questions come so close 
home to us on our way to the judgment-seat of 
Him who prepared that desert prison of old, nor 
unbarred the gates till the last one shut up within 
its walls had died. If now the proportion is re- 
versed ; if only the units out of the millions perish ; 
if all the rest shall enter the heavenly Canaan ; 
then may we give ourselves little concern about the 
future. The proportion of the lost in that case 
would be so small as to amount practically to luii- 



THE DESERT PniSOX; Oi?, SHUT UP TO CHRIST, 49 

versal salvation. But what if it be the other way? 
What if still the great multitude perish, and only 
the few reach the promised land? We ask instinct- 
ively if the fact that the millions were in the way to 
death in that day did not induce God to spare them, 
will o^oing: "^vith the multituds avail us now? If the 
fact that only two were found in the way of life 
did not lead to a lowering of the divine require- 
ment then, will a similar fact avail more to-day? 
God wa.s Love then as now, for he changeth not. 
If the love of God did not secure deliverance for 
them, will it secure it any more for the impenitent 
to-day? If thirty-seven years of suffering endured 
by so many did not change the law, or the sentence, 
or the mind of God, in that case, can we hope for 
any change to be wrought in him by ours? 

Pass down the ages to the times of Isaiah and 
read : " Though thy people Israel be as the sand 
of the sea," "a remnant of them" — only a rem- 
nant — "shall return," and wdiat follows? — ''the 
consumption decreed shall overflow with righteous- 
ness." Was the mind of the prophet on this thirty- 
seven j^ears' consumption of Israel in the wilderness ? 
Did men in his day also question the righteousness 
of the divine procedure, that he so carefully an- 
nounced not only a consumption decreed, but one 
that should overflow with righteousness? Hear him 
again : " Except the Lord of Hosts had left unto 



50 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

US a YQvy small reainant, we should have been as 
Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomor- 
rah." Here the remnant is very small, and even that 
is regarded as unmerited mercy. These words of 
the prophet are quoted by the apostle, and in an- 
other place he adds, '^Even so then at this present 
time also there is a remnant according to the elec- 
tion of grace." This was no utterance of an unsuc- 
cessful preacher, rendered morbid by his failure ; 
but it is the inspired statement of one who was 
more successful than all the rest of the apostles. 
And does the aspect of things to-day contradict 
these testimonies of the Word ? Look at the pro- 
portion of our church accommodations to the popula- 
tion ; at the proportion of those accommodations 
actually occupied from Sabbath to Sabbath ; at the 
character of many who occupy them. Compare the 
number in the community with the number in the 
congregation ; the number in the congregation and 
at the communion-table. And how many must we 
subtract even from this last? Then have Caleb and 
Joshua no message to us personally? 

Do those hundreds of thousands who died in the 
wilderness say nothing to us ? Compare their con- 
dition with ours. They were condemned ; and so 
are we, — justly condemned, and our condemnation 
is no less just. But here the likeness ends. No offer 
of deliverance from that desert prison encouraged 



THE DESERT PKISOX; 0/2, SHUT UP TO CnUIST. 51 

them to repent ; no prospect of release kindled in 
their hearts one ray of hope. It was one hopeless, 
unmitigated imprisonment until they died. 

It is not so with us. Our doom is indeed more 
terrible, for it is imprisonment under the curse, — not 
during the short life of the body, but forever. Once 
within those prison walls, there is a great gulf fixed 
that none may ever pass. But here we are prisoners 
of hope, shut up to the offer of mercy through a Re- 
deemer. Look at the fulness of the forgiveness 
offered, — pardon of every sin; at its freeness,— 
without price to whoever w^ill receive it ; at the 
Saviour who procured it, — the Word, w^ho was in the 
beginning with God, made flesh on purpose to ob- 
tain it for us; at the price he paid for it, — not 
merely laying aside the glory which he had with 
the Father ; not merely being a man of sorrows, en- 
during the contradiction of sinners against himself, 
but bearing our sins in his own body on the tree; 
and then see the grace to which it giv^es us access, 
— the full enjoyment of the love of God, now and 
forever, in an endless increase of the knowledge and 
appreciation of that love. 

We hope some of those who died in that wilder- 
ness died acknowledging the justice of their doom, 
and, through faith, entered into the heavenly Canaan. 
Shall they, so repenting, and so saved through re- 



52 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

deeming blood, rise up in judgment and condemn 
our impenitence and unbelief ? 

But some will say, "All depends on my being one 
of the elect." If any one cherishes such feelings, 
this history has a special lesson for him. Who was 
Caleb? Some may answer, "One of the chosen 
people." He may have been. We hope he is now 
in heaven. But it is not certain that he was of the 
seed of Abraham according to the flesh. He 
may have been one of the few ftivored Gentiles who, 
like Melchisedec and Jethro, Rahaband Ruth, even 
at that early day, gave a hint of the blessed harvest 
that is now being gathered in ; for it is written, " Unto 
Caleb he gave a part among the children of Judah, 
according to the commandment of the Lord." Why 
did he receive a part among the children of Judah, 
if he already belonged to them? Or, in that case, 
what need of a special command for this from the 
Lord ? Read again : " Hebron became the inheri- 
tance of Caleb the Kenezite nnto this day, because 
that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel." 
Does not that sound as if he foUow^ed Jehovah, the 
God of Israel, in preference to some other god, 
whom he w^ould be more naturally expected to fol- 
low, just as Jethro, the Midianite, might have been 
said to do, or Ruth, the Moabitess, w^ho said to 
Naomi, " Thy God shall be my God "? 

Suppose, then, that one of the two who were 



THE DESERT PBISOX; OR^ SHUT UP TO CHRIST, »l>c) 

spared, while those hundreds of thousands perished, 
was a Gentile who attached himself to the chosen 
people. Does that look as if the door was shut 
ao*ainst any? A^^hat if Caleb, in that case, had rea- 
soned, "I am not a descendant of Abraham, there- 
fore it is of no use for me to try to share their bless- 
ing's"? What if, when all Israel renounced the 
divine leadership, he had floated with the current 
and shared their crime? What if he had said, '' It 
is safe to be with the majority ; God cannot find it 
in his heart to punish so many, even if they are 
wicked ; for are they not his children ? " What if 
he had concluded, "It is not prudent to stand up so 
unbendingly for God and right"? What if he had 
preferred his own safety to the service of God, when 
all the people "bade stone him with stones "? We 
know how he reasoned and how he acted. When such 
an one in such a manner secures the divine approval, 
is it manly, — more than that, — is it honest, to 
sit still and say, ''If I am elected I shall be saved," 
while I do nothing to secure salvation ? Surely that 
stanch maintainer of the right will rise in the great 
day, and put such presumption to shame. Do such 
men think how the eye of God looks right through 
all such words to the root of rebellion from which 
they grow? Kather let them remember that the 
same God, who thus rewarded Caleb, when he left 



54 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

that great multitude to deserved destruction, is the 
same God with whom we have to do to-daj^. Did 
Caleb and Joshua ever regret their course ? Was 
ever a sinner sorry that he had believed in Jesus? 



CHAPTER Y. 

CHRIST PRESENTS HIS PEOPLE UNBLAMABLE IN 
THE SIGHT OF GOD. 

^^^£ HAT was a strange announcement of the 
(ijl / Mesopotaniian seer : " He hath not beheld 
iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen per- 
verseness in Israel." We cannot read it without 
wondering how it could be true. Was not the his- 
tory of Israel one succession of transgressions? — 
declension following reformation, and apostasy tread- 
ing on the heels of declension? They began to chide 
with Moses even before they left the land of Egypt. 
No sooner were they safe across the Red Sea than 
they murmured at the fountain of Marah. Hardh^ 
had they obtained relief there, before they com- 
plained about food ; and when bread had been sent 
from heaven, straightway they lusted for flesh. Time 
would fail to recount the perversity at Sinai ; the strife 
at the waters of Meribah ; the self-willed attack on 
Amalek, and their forty years' grieving of God in the 
wilderness. Now, how can it be said of such a peo- 

55 



56 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

pie that God hath not beheld iniquity, neither seen 
perverseness in them? 

There must be some explanation of this. Could it 
be that, though so guilty previously, a total change 
had taken place in the national character? Not so, 
for the wickedness of Baalpeor was just about to 
flaunt itself in the flice of Heaven. Nor will it do 
to say that these are the words of a heathen sooth- 
sayer, and so are incorrect ; for, however Balaam 
may have mingled sorceries with the worship of the 
true God, and however base he may have been per- 
sonally, yet he spake these w^ords as he was moved 
by the Holy Ghost ; for it is expressly said that 
"Jehovah put this word into his mouth," and "the 
Spirit of the Lord came upon him." We must, 
therefore, admit that it is as truly the word of the 
the Lord as any utterance of David or Isaiah. 

Paul may help ns to a solutibm of the difficulty 
when he tells us, "They are not all Israel which are 
of Israel;" "and as God said unto Elijah, "I have 
reserved unto myself seven thousand men who have 
not bowed the kneel to Baal," even so, in the days 
of Balaam, may there not have been a remnant 
according to the election of grace ? Still it may be 
asked, though there was such a remnant, and they 
did not partake in the rebellion of the people, 
were they therefore without sin, so that God could 
say he did not behold iniquity in them? There is 



UyBLAMABLE IS THE SIGHT OF GOD. 57 

not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sin- 
neth not ; and if we may not say that we have no 
sin, how can God say that he does not behold m- 
iquity in his people ? 

This question opens up a most interesting view of 
the grace of God. When Balaam uttered these words, 
the tabernacle was in the midst of the camp, and 
in its most holy place was the visible dwelling-place 
of God. Let us look in on the furniture of the 
apartment, and see what all Israel was taught to re- 
gard as the throne of Jehovah. There was the ark 
of the testimony, so called because it contained the 
tables of the law, which w^as his testimony to his 
people. It was the law by which is the knowledge 
of sin. Now, as God looked down upon that ark, 
what did he see ? The law testifying against the 
sins of Israel? No. That was covered by the 
golden mercy-seat, and its pure gold bore the 
stains of the blood which made atonement for sins. 
That blood-spiinkled mercy-seat covered up tlie 
sins of Israel from the eye of God, so that he saw 
nothing save the type of the blood which cleanseth 
us from all sin ; and so God did not behold in- 
iquity in Jacob. AVas it not amazing love that led 
Israel to associate that mercy-seat with God, so that 
they could not think of him but in connection with 
it? Was it anything else that appointed this as the 
place of meeting for man with God, so that every 



58 GLIMPSES OF cnnisT, 

thought of intercourse with the Most High should 
suggest the mercy-seat rather than the throne of 
judgment? 

So David sings of the blessedness of the man 
whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered; 
so covered by atoning blood that, as he goes on to 
say, God does not impute to the sinner the sins 
thus buried out of sight. So Isaiah is commis- 
sioned to say for God, "I, even I, am he that 
blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, 
and luill not remember thy sins." Micah is inspired 
to say, "Thou wait cast all their sins into the depths 
of the sea." But Jeremiah is charged with a 
stronger message than either: '^In those days, saith 
the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, 
and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and tliey 
shall not be found J^ All these are precious words 
of God, and in our moments of deepest conviction, 
when the burden of guilt is too heavy to be borne, 
we resort to them for comfort, and, as the warm 
sun of early summer smiles awa^^ the last trace of 
the dissolving snow, so do these words of God smile 
away the burden of our guilt. But here is one 
w^hichit may be we have overlooked. Far back in 
the dim past, w^ien as yet there was no thought of 
a temple in Jerusalem ; when as yet neither ark 
nor tabernacle had entered XJanaan ; wdien the 
homeless people still sojourned in tents in the land 



UNBLAMABLE IN THE SIGHT OF GOD. 59 

of Moab ; at such a time, not Moses, though he 
was yet alive, his eye not dim nor his natural force 
abated ; nor a prophet raised up from among the 
chosen people, but a heathen soothsayer, is commis- 
sioned to say, " He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, 
neither hath he seen perversity in Israel," so com- 
pletely is all blotted out by the blood of atonement. 
There are only two tenses in the Hebrew Lmguage, 
one of which denotes an action already complete, 
and still existing or recurring, and that is the tense 
here employed. Already, in the past, the blood on 
the mercy-seat above the law has so blotted out the 
transgressions of the law, that God hath not beheld 
iniquity in Jacob, and still, as new sins are added to 
the list in succession, it covers up each one, so that 
each moment it remains true that he doth not be- 
hold it. 

It would be pleasant to resign ourselves to the 
undisturbed contemplation of this truth ; but it may 
\^y a foundation of more lasting enjoyment if we 
answer some objections that may be brought against 
it ; for, sooner or later, they may occur to our own 
minds, and, if we know how to meet them, they can 
have no power to disturb our joy. 

It may be asked, Can anything be hidden from 
the Lord ? or can he ever forsret that which he has 
once known ? 

It will be a relief from all such questionings to bear 



60 GLIMPSES OF cnmsT. 

in mind that the words of Balaam are spoken of the 
judicial relations of God to his people, and not of 
the merely intellectual working of the divine mind. 
As the Omniscient One, he beholds and has behc^ld 
all our transgressions. Nor will the mere intellect- 
ual perception of the facts ever pass away ; but, as 
our Judge, he does not behold one thing calling 
even for censure in the sinner that believes in Jesus ; 
as our Father, he does not see one hindrance to the 
fullest outflow of his love ; as the God whom it is 
our chief end to enjoy forever, he does not see one 
cause interfering with the infinite blessedness we 
are to find in him through eternity. In all these 
respects it is as if he had never beheld iniquity in 
Jacob. Some may say that he looks on us as he 
looks on the angels who have never sinned, and 
feels toward us as he feels toward them. But that 
does not express one-half the truth ; for we are be- 
loved in the Lord ; regarded vvith favor as mem- 
bers of the body of Jesus Christ ; and so regarding 
us, he hath not beheld iniquity in us. 

It is inspiring to think, that, so long before 
his assuming; our nature, the blood of our Jesus 
should be so efficacious, and that a heathen prophet 
was permitted to enjoy such a glimpse of the per- 
fection of our justification ; and then tlrnt it should 
have been recorded in Scripture, for the comfort of 
God's people in all ages, is amazing goodness. 



UNBLAMABLE IN THE SIGHT OF GOD. 61 

From the field of Zophim, on the top of Pisgah, 
Balaam cries to the Church of God, which he hath 
redeemed with his own blood : " He hath not be- 
held iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen per- 
versity in Israel ; '* and from his humble lodging 
in the city of Corinth, Paul sends forth the di- 
vine message: ^^ There is therefore now no con- 
demnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." Xot 
a little condemnation, but none at all ; not a perfect 
acquittal to be given hereafter, but here and now. 
Let us always Avalk between these royal banners, 
reading the inscriptions as we go, and let us feel 
toward the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, as becomes those who believe the message 
of this good word of God. 

If the Israelite always thought of God as en- 
throned above the mercy-seat ; if, whenever he 
worshipped, he was taught to turn in that direc- 
tion; if, also, the faces of the cherubim were to- 
ward that same mercy-seat, reminding us how 
angels desire to look into its mysteries, surely 
Christians, in all their approaches to God, should 
think of him as the God who "hath made him to be 
sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made 
the righteousness of God in him." 

Whenever we meet with anything so admirably 
adapted to set forth the work of our Redeemer, we 
instinctively long for some assurance that God de- 
6 



62 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

signed that adaptation, and so approves the enjoy- 
ment we find in it. God understands such feelings 
in his people, and furnishes the desired assurance in 
that Scripture which, speaking of Christ, says, 
"Whom God set forth to be a propitiation through 
faith in his blood ; to declare his righteous- 
ness, that he might be just and the justifier of him 
that believeth in Jesus." The Greek word ren- 
dered propitiation is the identical term that is used 
in the Septuagint whenever the word mercy -seat 
occurs in the Mosaic account of the tabernacle. 
We may conceive of our propitiotion as covering 
sin from the sight of God, or as bearing it away and 
casting it into the depths of the sea, — that most 
inaccessible place to human eyes, — or we may think 
of him as blotting it out with his own blood. But 
every way God is most just, when, as our Judge, 
"he hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath 
he seen perversity in Israel." 



CHAPTER VI. 

FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. 

JN the castle of a nobleman beyond the Jor- 
dan, whose influence is felt throughout the 
land, a modest youth leads a life of humble 
dependence. He is not the nobleman's own son ; 
he is not even a relative ; he is simply a guest 
dependent on the hospitality of the castle for his 
daily bread. As now the decayed representative 
of an illustrious name may be fed by the bounty of 
some Koordish emir, so does this youth enjoy 
the hospitality of Machir, the son of Ammiel, the 
Chief of Lodebar. His is not a life to be coveted, 
for besides the galling feeling of dependence is the 
constant sense of insecurity. At any moment the 
guest of to-day is liable to become the exile of the 
morrow. Even worse than that, — his father's 
father had filled a throne now occupied by another, 
and Eastern monarchs are not wont to spare those 
who may one day drive their own children from the 
throne. Besides all these things, this man has for 
sixteen years been a hopeless cripple. When but five 

63 



64 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

years old his father and his father's father fell on the 
same bloody field, and his nurse, dreading the indis- 
criminate slaughter of the whole family, too common 
on such occasions, fled with her tender charge to a 
place of safety; but either the road was too rough, 
or she was too excited, for she let him fall, and crip- 
pled him for life. Perhaps it would be hard to 
find in all Israel a more pitiable object. He had 
been born heir-presumptive to the throne, and now 
he drags out an obscure existence at the greatest 
possible distance from the capital, among the forests 
beyond the Jordan. He is only too glad to be ob- 
scure ; indeed, the better to secure concealment, it 
seems that he has changed his name for one in 
which a stranger would hardly recognize the grand- 
son of the late king. 

SiTcli was his situation when one day a royal 
messenger was seen approaching the castle walls. 
What could he want in that secluded place? He 
enters and summons the young cripple to the pres- 
ence of the king. What a moment was that ! 
Has some informer betrayed his hiding-place? Per- 
haps his kind entertainers give him up for lost, 
for, if the royal eye penetrates the obscurity of a 
border castle and the diso'uise of that assumed name, 
where can their guest be safe? They are well aware, 
too, that disobedience to a royal mandate has often 
furnished an excuse for the stroke that followed. 



FOR Christ's sake. 65 

In Oriental lands not seldom has snch a messensrer 
been charged to despatch his victim in the first 
lonely glen through which they passed, or lead him 
into the ambush waiting for their prey. Yet this 
son of a noble sire, not knowing the things that 
shall befall him, voluntarily follows the messenger. 
Together they wind around the woody hills of 
Gilead, across the valley of the Jordan, between 
impenetrable thickets, and go up the road from Jeri- 
cho to Jerusalem, where a certain man fell among 
thieves. With what feelings did he climb the sides 
of Olivet, and catch his first glimpse of the city, from 
the same point w^hence, long after, a greater than he 
wept over Jerusalem ! Ushered into the royal pres- 
ence, in painful uncertainty of what might follow, 
he falls prostrate before the arbiter of his fate. 
David notices his trepidation, and his resemblance 
to his father, — that friend whom he had never 
ceased to love, — and he says, ^^Pear not, for I will 
surely show thee kindness for Jonathan thy father's 
sake, and will restore thee all the laud of Saul thy 
father, and thou shall eat bread at my table continu- 
ally." The poor cripple bows himself again, though 
with far different feelings, saying, " What is thy 
servant that thou shouldest look upon such a dead 
dog as I? " This language sounds strange to us, but 
in the East, where dogs do not belong to particular 
owners, but herd in droves about the streets, and at 
6* 



66 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

evening make a noise, and go round about tbe city 
wandering up and down for meat, and fighting 
together for the garbage in the gutters, it is ex- 
ceedingly impressive. When the Jew would con- 
centrate hatred and scorn of the Gentile into one 
word, he calls him a dog. That woman of 
Canaan did not resent the epithet when applied to 
her. But a dead dog is a step below even that, and 
is called forth by the strong impression made by 
such unexpected favor on one naturally meek, and 
whom long suffering had made still more humbly 
submissive. 

What a chano^e was wrou^rht in the condition of 
that poor cripple by those words of David ! Before, 
he was not only homeless and penniless, he was 
unable to earn his bread, and seemed to have been 
summoned from obscurity only to be slain. But 
now, not onl}^ is he assured of life, he has also 
an ample estate. Instead of hiding in distant Lode- 
bar, he dwells in Jerusalem. Instead of being 
treated as a traitor, he sits at the table of the king ; 
and, instead of poverty, he has all the comforts of 
royalty, without its cares. 

The narratives of Scripture are not mere stories to 
interest us for a moment and then be forgotten ; but 
each is intended to implant in the mind some truth, 
which may be an abiding blessing. What truths, 
then, are taught us by this narrative ? The situation 



FOR Christ's sake, 67 

of the sinner, before he comes to God, is illastrated 
by that fugitive in Lodebar. He dared not meet 
the king, because of his relation to that bloody Saul, 
who hunted for the life of David ; and the sinner dares 
not meet God, because himself is possessed of that 
carnal mind which is enmity against God ; he loves 
darkness rather than light, because his own deeds are 
evil. "For every one that doetli evil hateth the 
light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds 
should be reproved." He had rather stay in the 
woods beyond Jordan than come to the sanctuary 
where the Word of God reveals his sinfulness, and, 
when there, he had rather hear a prophesying of 
smooth thino^s than a faithful settino^ forth of his 
sins. In the language of Scripture, he says, "De- 
part from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy 
ways." 

As that cripple was unfitted to earn his daily 
bread, the sinner has unfitted himself to secure his 
own salvation. There is none lacking among his 
intellectual faculties ; he is created with no disena- 
bling deficiency in his moral powders ; but by his own 
sin he unfitshimself for the exercise of holiness, and, 
as a delicate instrument, long used for a purpose to 
which it is not adapted, becomes unfitted for its 
proper use, so is the heart of the sinner unfitted 
for the service and enjoyment of God. 

As that son of Jonathan knew neither safety nor 



68 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

happiness till he came to the king, so the sinner 
never can attain true felicity till he conies to God. 
He will always live a life of fear and suspense, not 
knowing what evil may befall him, or when, till he 
returns to the only Being able to make him blest. 
It is only when a sinner can say, "The Lord is my 
salvation ! " that he can add, "Whom shall I fear ? " 
In his favor is life. Nothing else can take the place 
of that favor. Gather together the most of wealth, 
honor, and earthly pleasure, that mortal ever called 
his own, and it does not satisfy the soul. 

We must leave Lodebar, and go to Jerusalem, if 
we would find our true resting-place, even though 
all the way thither it seems anything but an ap- 
proach to rest. It is significant that the name Lo- 
debar means literally "no pasture," and the name 
" Salem" means peace ; and to find true peace we 
must come out of the hiding-place where we vainly 
try to flee from God, and surrender ourselves to 
him, in Christ. 

This narrative illustrates the divine origin of 
salvation. The son of Jonathan does not come to 
David, and beg for his favor, but David searches for 
him and brings him to his palace ; and so the sinner 
does not ask God to provide salvation ; but God so 
loves us as to provide it in Christ, and then urges 
us to look to him and live. 

Here, also, we see the true ground of the divine 



FOR Christ's sake. 69 

favor toward sinners. David, previons to this act 
of royal favor, had no personal regard for his guest; 
he may have never even seen him ; but before that son 
of Jonathan was born he had entered into covenant 
with his father, that he would not cut off his kind- 
ness from the house of Jonathan, forever. It was 
because of that covenant that, as soon as he was 
firmly seated on the throne, he instituted the inquiry, 
"Is there yet any left of the house of Saul, that I 
may show him kindness, for Jonathan's sake ? " All 
the favor shown to the son of Jonathan, down to 
the day of his death, was on the same ground; and 
beautifully does this set forth the ground of the di- 
vine favor to us. God does not save us in retm^n 
for goodness in us, or for service rendered by us, 
but on the ground of his covenant with the Son, that, 
on condition he was wounded for our transgressions, 
he should see of the travail of his soul and be satis- 
fied. We may be full of provocation, and Adam, 
like Saul, may call for wrath to rest on all his descend- 
ants, but the second Adam, like Jonathan, comes 
n to carry away, with bleeding hands, our sins and 
the sins of our fathers, and cast them into the depths 
of the sea. 

Does not this OTOund of the favor of God to 
sinners shine out divinely by the side of this favor 
of the kins: to the son of his friend? David is 
mindful of the brotherly covenant, but he knows 



70 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

not whether any one lives to profit by it ; so he 
makes inquiry throughout the land. But when the 
Father entered into covenant with the Son it was 
with no such uncertainty. He gave to his Son those 
who were chosen in him from before the foundation 
of the world, and then gave him power over all 
flesh that he might give eternal life to as many as 
were thus given him, 

David was a redeemed sinner, showing now the 
loveliness of grace, and now the hatefulness of sin. 
Our benefactor is the unchanging God. Jonathan 
had been long dead, but He through whom we are 
saved ever liveth to make intercession for us. Was 
David moved to this kindness by an earthly love ; 
and shall the infinite love of the Father to the Son 
ever fail those who come unto God through him? 
Think of divine love to a divine object, and adore 
the grace which makes that the foundation of our 
hope. 

Does not the favor shown by David to the son of 
Jonathan beautifully shadow forth the extent of the 
favor shown to us in Christ ? The poor fugitive is 
not only made rich, but admitted to daily inter- 
course with the kino;. He eats bread with him in his 
kingdom ; he enjoys all that the king would have 
delighted to have made his father enjoy. And so 
God in Christ not only pardons sinners for Christ's 
sake, but we are to eat bread with Christ in his 



FOR cnnisT^s sake. 71 

kingdom, and in that intercessory prayer which, more 
than any other Scripture, opens up to us the heart 
of God, we overhear the words, "Thou hast loved 
them as thou hast loved me." What is David's 
love to Jonathan compared with that ? And this is 
the portion of the sinner who comes to God through 
Christ. 

Let the sinner who does not trust in Christ look at 
that trembling one in Lodebar. He does not know 
David as the sweet singer of Israel, or the man 
after God's own heart ; he knows him only as the 
man who sits on the throne that should have been 
his father's. He is summoned to the royal presence, 
but not one word is said of the reason why ; he can 
only guess that from the dark record of Oriental 
despotism. Yet he goes at once, not knowing 
but the path before him may lead to the grave. 
Look at him, and in the light of his obedience how 
seems disobedience to God ? In view of his sub- 
mission, how appears want of submission to Clirist? 
By the side of his faith, how stands unbelief in the 
Saviour? Let the wicked forsake his way, and 
return unto our God, and see if the difference be- 
tween what he heard of Christ from others, and 
what he finds in him, be not far greater than that 
between the fears of the son of Jonathan and the 
reception he met wdth from his father's friend. 




CHAPTER VII. 

COMrLETE ACCEPTANCE THROUGH CHRIST. 

« 

ORE than all else the Christian loves to 
study the truth that relates to Christ, 
and more than all else that truth con- 
forms him to God. It is a blessed arrangement of 
divine grace that thus makes inclination, duty, and 
blessing: to flow in the same channel. 

The Epistle to the Hebrews presents very precious 
views of Christ, but often uses language in a sense 
peculiar to itself. We have an example of this in 
the passage, '' By one offering he hath perfected for- 
ever them that are sanctified," and he who would 
understand it must study it carefully, for the words 
have a meaning unusual to us, though perfectly fa- 
miliar to the first readers of this epistle. 

They seem to say that the atonement shall make 
perfect in heaven those who become holy on earth ; 
but the apostle is not speaking of our attaining 
unto perfect holiness, but of the sufficiency of the 
one offering of Christ for justification in opposi- 
tion to the oft-repeated offerings of the temple. 

72 



COMPLETE ACCEPTANCE THEOUOn CHRIST. 73 

Pie had just said " Every priest stands daily minister- 
ing and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which 
can never take away sin ; but this man, after he had 
offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on 
the right hand of God ; " and afterwards he adds, 
"Now, where remission of sins takes place, there is 
no more offering for sin." Both before and after this 
statement his mind is on the sufficiency of the atone- 
ment, not for sanctification, but justification. 

With this hint for a guide, let us now search out 
the meaning of this Scripture. It speaks of an effi- 
cacy of the atonement on them w4io are sanctified. 
Who are they? We may suppose them the holy in 
heart. But in the previous chapter Paul speaks of 
the blood of the sacrifices and the water of separa- 
tion sanctifying to the purifying of the flesh. Here 
is no moral renovation, but only such a cleansing 
from ceremonial defilement as qualifies a man for 
external worship ; and the argument is, "How much 
more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience 
from dead works to serve the living God ! " The 
object is to deliver the conscience from the sense of 
guilt, that it may enter into the enjoyment of peace 
with God. 

But as this meaning of sanctification seems strange 
to us, though familiar to the Hebrew mind, let us 
look at some of the things that made it so. Aaron 
and his sons were commanded to eat those things 



74 



GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 



wherewith the atonement was made, to consecrate 
and to sanctify them ; that is, the efficacy of these, 
as an expiation for sin, would qualify them for their 
service as the priests of God. Again God com- 
manded Moses, "Seven days shalt thou make an 
atonement for the altar, and sanctify it, and it shall 
be an altar most holy," by virtue of that seven days' 
atonement. So, also, it is written of Job that, when 
the days of his children's feasting had gone about, 
he "sent and sanctified them." How? The narra- 
tive goes on to say : he " offered burnt-offerings 
according to the number of them all," for Job said, 
"It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed 
God in their hearts." 

Indeed, the chapter before us declares that we are 
" sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus 
Christ once." Now, what can this mean but that ex- 
piation is made for us by that offering ? In this same 
chapter the writer speaks of one who counts ^^the 
blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an 
unholy thing." Can we make that mean anything 
else than the blood wherewith expiation was made 
for him ? 

In the thirteenth chapter we read that "the bodies 
of those beasts whose blood is brous^ht into the 
sanctuary for sin are burned without the camp ; 
wherefore, Jesus, also, that he might sanctify the 
people with his own blood, suffered without the 



COMPLETE ACCEPTANCE THROUGH CHRIST, lb 

gate." Now, would the apostle compare the suffer- 
ing of Christ without the gate to their bodies be^iig 
burned without the camp, if the sanctification was 
different in the two cases? And how did those 
offerings sanctify? Their blood, we are told, was 
brought into the sanctuary, an expiation for sin. 
Yet let no one conclude that because sanctification 
sometimes has this meaning, therefore the ordinary 
meanino^ of the word is false. As well mii>:ht one 
insist that, because the word interest has a special 
meaning in the counting-room, it shall never have any 
other. Even merchants consult their own interest, 
and consider what will best promote it. Sanctifica- 
tion is as essential to salvation as justification, for 
"without holiness no man shall see the Lord." But 
that does not prevent that, when Paul wrote, "By one 
offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanc- 
tified," he meant, and his readers understood him, 
them for whom it made expiation. If any one still 
doubts this meaning, let him read in the context, 
"Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into 
the holiest by the blood of Jesus, let us draw 
near, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil 
conscience." That is the sanctification referred to, 
— the heart washed from the corroding torment of 
ofuilt in the blood of Jesus. Without the knowledsre 
of this meaning of the term, not only this, but other 
Scriptures also, must fail to impart to us any spirit- 



76 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

ual comfort. Take that statement, for example, 
^^Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified 
are all of one." If we understand this, — the pro- 
gressive deliverance of the heart from sin, — what 
consolation does it bring ! Did Christ turn from 
sin to holiness and then struggle toward perfection 
through such devious ways as we do? But read it, 
He who makes expiation and they for whom it is 
made are all of one ; and it tells us that, in the very 
nature in which we sinned, Christ suffered for our 
sins. It tells us, too, that such a Saviour "is not 
ashamed to call us brethren," and that we may find 
in him, thus made like unto his brethren, "a merciful 
and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God." 
Put any other meaning on the expression in the 
text, and the whole passage is out of the reach of 
the true disciple. Go to that contrite heart, — one 
of the poor in spirit, whom Jesus blesses, — and tell 
him thus and thus is true of the holy in heart ; and 
it is as if he heard of the death of his dearest friend. 
What is the matter? Why, his first thought is, 
Then it is not for me, for I am unholy, but oh, I 
should have loved to take into my heart a truth so 
precious ! Now tell him the same is true of them 
whose hope of pardon rests on atoning blood ; and 
is there any need to explain those tears? His 
heart is just drinking in this river of consolation till 
it runs over in those drops of joy. He is thinking 



COMPLETE ACCEPTANCE TUROUOn CHRIST. 77 

what that means, " By one offering he hath perfected 
forever; " and the more he thinks, the more heaven 
seems to open before his wondering gaze. But let 
us leave him, to dig for ourselves into this mine of 
truth. It is better to draw Avater ourselves from 
the wells of salvation than to look on another as he 
drinks of the water of life. 

What, then, is the meaning of '' hath perfected for- 
ever" ? Bearing in mind that this part of the epistle 
treats of the superiority of the one offering of Christ 
over all the offerings of the law, for justification, in 
the previous chapter we find the key to the meaning 
in these words : The offerings and sacrifices of the 
first tabernacle " could not make him that did the 
service perfect as pertaining to the conscience." 
That strikes the key-note. It is not, '^ make perfect" 
the moral character, but as ^'pertaining to the con- 
science." To make perfect, then, in this sense, is to 
remove completely the sense of guilt, and replace it 
with the peace of God. The ceremonial law could 
not do this, with all its divers washings and carnal 
ordinances. But "Christ, by his own blood, entered 
in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal 
redemption for us." Put that eternal redemption 
throu2:h " enterino: once with his own blood into the 
holy place," alongside of these words, and see if it 
throws no light on his having perfected forever, by one 
offering, those for whom he died. Then, read again, 



78 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

in this same chapter, " The law having the rongh ont- 
line, and not the complete picture of the good things 
to come," — and every artist knows what that means, 
— " can never with those sacrifices, which they offered 
year by year continually, make the comers thereunto 
perfect ; for then would they not have ceased to be 
offered?" Why? "Because that the worshippers, 
once purged, should have had no more consciexce of 
SINS." Is it not plain that the sense of guilt is the evil 
to be perfectly done away by this one offering ? The 
" making perfect," then, is the complete removal of 
this through the application of the blood of Jesus. 

Let us now gather into one statement the result 
of this, perhaps, too tedious inquiry. According to 
the Scriptures considered, "Of the things that have 
been spoken, this is the sum : " Christ, by the sacri- 
fice offered once upon the cross, has completely and 
forever removed the penalty due to sin, from all his 
people. This does not mean that they shall be 
saved even though they do not repent. It is true 
that Christ tasted death for every man, and he is a 
propitiation for the sins of the whole world; but 
only those who have fled for refuge, to lay hold of 
this hope set before us, shall be saved. And no 
sinner, however numerous or black his crimes, who 
comes unto God, through Christ, shall ever perish. 
He may be the greatest transgressor that ever walked 
the earth ; but whosoever accepts the offer of mercy 



COMPLETE ACCEPTANCE THROUGH CHRIST, 79 

through redeeming blood, Christ justifies him com- 
pletely and forever. 

Look at these two ideas separately. Christ justi- 
fies all such completely. Adam in Paradise was not 
more truly an object of the divine complacence than 
is the sinner who to-day believes in Jesus. No 
angel round about the throne is regarded with 
greater favor than the sinner who comes to God 
through Christ. The grace bestowed on such is not 
something which God bestov»^s because it is his 
official duty, — as a banker might count out money 
to the man w^io brings the proper papers, thinking 
only of their correctness, but nothing at all of the 
man to whom he pays it. He might do this to a 
stranger whom he never saw before, and would never 
think of ao'ain. He mii^^ht do it to a criminal, the 
sight of whom only awakened such abhorrence that 
he hastened to get rid of him. Nor does God par- 
don through Christ, half doubting whether it be 
expedient, as a governor might pardon a malefactor, 
simply because it was the more merciful alternative, 
while as a man he would have nothing to do with 
the object of his clemency. God never hesitates, as 
if about to do something of doubtful propriety. He 
never blesses, in his public capacity, a sinner whom 
in his heart he cannot love. When God gives his 
hand to a sinner, in Christ, his heart goes with it, 
his whole heart, in all its infinite and unutterable 



80 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

love. He does not see our sins ; instead of them, 
he sees only tlie stains of the precious blood that 
blotted them out. He does not even see a sinner 
before him ; he sees only a representative of his 
dear Son, and the measure of the love with which 
he loves us, is the love which he bears to Christ. 
Tell me the delight of the Father in that only -be- 
gotten Son, and I will make known the great love 
wherewith he loves the members of his spiritnal 
body. The great trouble with Christians is, that 
they do not half believe it. In their thoughts they 
diminish it to something that is suitable, as they 
suppose, to objects of love so vile as they, and then 
try to believe it, like men trying to use property 
which in their heart they think is not theirs. Just 
as though our sinfulness was the measure of the love 
of God, and not that one offering of our Redeemer. 
That, — nothing in us, — that only, secures for us the 
perfect love of God ; not his pity, but his love. We 
may have a perfect pity for some miserable wretch 
we would never choose for a companion ; but this 
is love. An aged parent would love the child of 
his departed daughter for her sake ; a brother 
would cherish the infant left behind by the sister 
who is not, for God took her. They do not ask, is 
it amiable, or beautiful? Its beauty and its amia- 
bility are its relation to the loved one that is gone. 
So, only in an infinitely greater degree, God loves 



COMPLETE ACCEPTANCE THROUGH CHRIST. 81 

the sinner who comes to him throiio'h Christ. AYe 
read that Christ is able to save to the uttermost, and 
in our hearts put that uttermost far off in the life to 
come. But what is salvation? Is it not reunion to 
God? Then w^e have it now and here, and w^e can- 
not go to an uttermost, in thinking how we would 
like God to love us, that he has not gone beyond in 
the love already procured. Search long, study 
forever, and still this "he hath perfected" is above 
and beyond us, — a love w^hicb passcth knowledge. 

If these imperfect words help us to consider the 
"completely," turn now to the "forever." Just as 
God loves Christians to-day in Christ, so will he 
love them through eternity. "The gifts and calling 
of God are without repentance." These things are 
soon said ; but the truth they express moves on 
through duration with a grander and more enduring 
sweep than that of the planets through space. Let 
no man detract from the force of such statements, 
lest they encourage Christians to sin. Encourage 
Christians to sin ! When other men can be encour- 
aged to be diseased and suffer pain, instead of enjoy- 
ing health, then will we talk about Christians being 
encouraged to sin. Such a thing would prove a 
man no Christian. As well misfht one fear lest the 
world fall because it has no solid support. It w^ould 
not be a world if it stood on a foundation ever so 
firm. Its very existence depends on its ceaseless 



82 



GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 



motion along its orbit ; and so the Christian. Cease, 
then, from such fears and take God at his word. 
That says, "He has perfected forever," and God 
never exaggerates. 

Then step oft* the foundation of personal deserv- 
ing ; step on to this divine basis of that one ofiering, 
and look at the infinite fulness of its capacity. It 
may require something commensurate with God to 
secure his favor for sinners ; but is not this suffi- 
cient ? It may have seemed a small thing for those 
Eoman soldiers to crucify that unresisting Jew. 
They may have thought that they had done greater 
things on the battle-fields of the empire. But see ! 
the sun hides his face ; earth shudders ; the rocks 
rend themselves. No marvel. This globe was 
created for that one event and its results. All 
history moves round it as its centre. Heaven, so 
far as related to earth, exists only in and through it. 
And who are the actors? Not kings, or angels, 
or archangels. But there, God the Father lays on 
Christ the iniquities of us all. There, God the Son 
bears our sins in his own body ; and* after this it is a 
small matter that angels desire to look into these 
things. Not from the highest created being, but 
from the Lord God Almighty, this offering derives 
its efficacy. That efficacy is infinite, because it is 
divine. We speak of the fortunes of private men, 
or the wealth of a nation, as employed in some great 



COMPLETE ACCEPTANCE THROUGH CHRIST, 83 

undertaking ; and in how many cases is the wealth 
so employed utterly consumed? But in this one 
oflering of Jesus Christ, God has, as it were, em- 
ployed the infinite power of Godhead, which remains 
in all its integrity as before. God still lives to im- 
part eflSciency to that offering. He liveth forever to 
render it eternally eflSicacious, and therefore by it he 
hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. 

Well might he who made it stand erect and say, 
" He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he 
that believeth on me shall never thirst." " This is 
the Father's w^ill who hath sent me, that of all 
which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but 
should raise it up again at the last day." "I give unto 
my people eternal life, and they shall never perish, 
neither shall any pluck them out of my hand." Are 
not these true sayings of God a divine commentary 
on this utterance of Holy Scripture ? 

These things teach us where to find perfection, — 
not in our own hearts, where, aside from grace, 
dwells no good thing ; and even grace is contami- 
nated by contact Vith our sin. Whoever looks for 
perfection there must look in vain. But let us look 
to Jesus, to the infinite perfection of his redemption, 
and the glory of his power to save ; for in him alone 
shall we find rest. Oh, the blessedness of being 
allowed to look unto Jesus ; and even then of rest- 
ing not in our looking, but in the one offering of 



84 GLIMPSES OF CUEIST. 

him to whom we look, whereby he is alDle to perfect 
every sinner that comes to God by him ! 

In the light of this truth the privilege of interces- 
sion shines out with new glory. Some view this 
blessed work in such a light that it becomes a burden. 
Christian mothers go to God in behalf of their chil- 
dren, full of desire for their salvation, but distressed 
by the feeling that they cannot offer one petition 
for them worthy the ear of God. In his presence 
their faith seems worthless ; their desires seem no 
desires ; even their love for their children so un- 
spiritual that they dare not plead it before the 
Lord. No wonder prayer almost dies within them, 
and they go forth from the closet with a heavy 
heart. They were trying to prevail with God 
through the fervor of their own devotion, and they 
might as well have tried to push the globe from 
its orbit. Here we discern a more excellent way. 
That great High Priest, who brings us to the mercy- 
seat, fills our hands with this one offering which he 
hath made, and we have nothing to do but to go in 
just as we are, make known our feand, and point 
to this precious blood of atonement. This is the 
foundation on which we stand to pray. This is the 
life of our petitions. This secures divine favor for us 
and our intercession. So that the sinner who enters 
the Holy of Holies, bearing this one offering of 



COMPLETE ACCEPTAXCE THROUGH CHRIST, 85 

Christ, comes forth bearing the thing for which he 
asked, — it may be blessing for one soul, or for a 
family, or for a church, or for a nation, or for the 
world. None of them are too large to be procured 
by this one offering, and Christ hath made us kings 
and priests unto God and his Father on purpose 
that we might prove its efficacy in all our inter- 
cessions. Would to God that the church appre- 
ciated this high calling ! Would that it knew the 
power it may thus have to prevail with God ! It is 
when we look not to our fervor, or our faith, but to 
this one offering, that we pray the fervent and effect- 
ual prayer of the righteous that availeth much. 

As our hearts grow up into this utterance of the 
apostle, how appear those professed ministers of 
Christ, who sneer at w^iat they term a sacrificial the- 
ology as an obsolete dogma? How can they speak 
so of Christ and his redeeming love ? Let us offer 
that petition of him whom they dishonor, " Father, 
forgive them, they know not what they do." 

While they would exalt their human notions to its 
glorious throne, let us maintain this one offering of 
Christ against every human substitute. We cannot 
exalt it higher than God does in his Word, and God 
forbid that we should glory in anything else ! When 
burdened with sin let us rest on it for pardon. 
When struggling with evil, thence let us derive our 



8 



86 GLIMPSES OF CHRTST. 

victoiy ; and in that last conflict, when our feet 
shall pass into an untried world, then, too, let us 
look away from every defect of our own piety to 
this one offering whereby he hath perfected forever 
them that are sanctified. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

VITAL UNION WITH CHRIST. 

C>^ HE soil* contributes of its substance for the 
f§f / life of plants. Plants again sustain animal 
life. And in like manner the lower forms 
of animal life furnish material for the support of 
the life of man. Yet all this is true only where 
there is life already; and, where that is wanting, 
these vital processes are i»;apossible. For there 
must be life to take up into itself the material adapt- 
ed to its support. A dead tree may stand in soil 
ever so fertile, but its roots, instead of deriving life 
from the wealth of material round about, themselv^es 
decay. Life, then, is indispensable to the processes 
that sustain life. But when that is wanting, how 
shall it be restored ? To this question nature fur- 
nishes no reply. Life produces life ; but it is in 
another existence, not in itself. The plant and ani- 
mal produce others after their kind ; but they are 
offshoots springing up around the parent stem, each 
one a separate existence, and, numerous as they may 
be, they cannot restore vitality to the decaying trunk 

87 



88 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

whence they proceeded. The fabled fountain of 
youth is indeed a ftible. In all the reahn of nature 
there is no power to bring back the life that has 
departed. The lifeless form, however full of manly 
beauty yesterday, to-day craves to be buried out 
of sight. Only the power that gives life can restore 
it. Only when the Creator of Lazarus stands before 
his tomb and bids him come forth, can the sheeted 
dead obey. Precisely so, whqn spiritual life leaves 
the soul, and a divine hand Avrites over its sepul- 
chre, "Dead in trespasses and sins." Only he who 
gave that life at first can reanimate it now. lu the 
beginning, life was a direct communication from the 
living God ; and such, nothing less, is its restoration, 
as it is written, " The first man, Adam, was made a 
living soul; the last Adam a life-giving spirit." 
The bestowment of this life is a mystery on which 
nature sheds no light, but the Bible reveals it to our 
comfort and joy in the Lord. That speaks not only 
of a communication of life, but of a vital union to 
the source of life. Christ saith, " I am the vine, ye 
are the branches." ^^ I am the source whence your 
spiritual life proceeds, the indwelliug power that 
maintains it and makes it fruitful." Once more, 
willing more abundantly to impart both life and joy, 
he saith to us by his Spirit, "Now ye are the body 
of Christ and members in particular ; " that is, ad- 
dressing the whole number of believers, he calls 



riTJL UXION- WITH CHRIST. 89 

them his body, and each one among them a member 
of that body ; collectively they constitute his body, 
individually they are members of that body in which 
he dwells as its life ; so that each one can say, " I 
live, yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me." The 
apostle, in describing believers as grafted into Christ, 
says it is "contrary to nature," for, in nature, the 
graft carries over with it its own life, and feeds it 
out of- the life of the tree in which it is inserted. 
But we, " contrary to nature," having no life of our 
own save what may well be called a living deaths 
receive both life and its nourishment from him. 
The worthless graft, through a vital connection with 
Christ, is made good, and receives a perpetuation of 
that goodness. Each of these illustrations is im- 
perfect, as indeed every illustration must be, for 
in the nature of things it can only set forth one 
aspect of truth. The illustration of the vine is 
imperfect, in that the life it imparts is wholly phys- 
ical ; so that, though the idea of imparting and 
sustaining life is most beautifully brought out, yet 
we are in dano^er of transferrino; the idea of a life 
necessarily physical to a life whose nature is spirit- 
ual and free. The branch grows out of the vine and 
lives in it, without thought, — the opposite of the 
life which we live in Christ ; and so this most com- 
forting illustration may be perverted to the en- 
couragement of an idle unbelief, while intellectually 
8* 



90 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

we admire what we do not realize, and revel in fan- 
cies instead of solid experience. 

The illustration of the body and its members is 
also imperfect, because while only the part nearest 
the head is in contact with it, all the rest can only 
be united to it through the parts intervening, so 
that some are more remote than others ; but every 
member is immediately joined to Christ. Nothing 
comes between my soul and him any more than be- 
tween Paul and the Saviour who spoke to him on 
the way to Damascus. Nothing comes between 
any believer and Christ any more than between the 
disciple whom Jesus loved and the bosom on which 
he leaned at supper. Therefore, in meditating on 
this illustration, it is well to think of Christ, not as 
the outward visible head at one extremity of the 
body, but as the head of life, which, like a subtile 
essence, pervades the whole body. There is a word 
used by some in this connection which w^ien rightly 
understood is very expressive, though very unmean- 
ing if understood in the ordinary sense. The word is 
" inform : " it usually means " to give information ; " 
but here is used in the sense of "forming inwardly," 
creating the inner essence and making it to grow up 
to perfection. In this sense Christ informs every 
member of his spiritual body ; that is, he forms 
them such, creating them anew, and Avorking out 
that new creation till they are complete in him. 



VITAL UNION WITH CHRIST, 91 

Holding fast to this truth, we have no trouble about 
the Head being so far from our humble position in 
the bod\', and so much coming between us and Him 
who is our life ; but in every movement of our 
spiritual life we recognize the movement of Him 
who works in us both to will and to do. 

The union of the members in the body will be 
destroyed ; but this living union w^ith Christ is in- 
destructible. The vital union between arm and 
head shall end, and when the life that now binds them 
together shall pass away, even the material com- 
posing them, deprived of the informing life, shall 
crumble into dust; but the union between Christ 
and his people shall endure while God endures. 
Let no one think that this union is eternal because 
it relates to the soul which never dies ; for it in- 
cludes body as well as soul. If our souls are united 
to Christ, so are our bodies also. ^'Know ye not 
that your bodies are the members of Christ?" It 
may seem strange that one so glorious should unite 
to himself these vile bodies, that are doomed to cor- 
ruption. Certainly we had never dreamed of ask- 
ing such a favor ; but this is not the only thing in 
which redeeming love does exceeding abundantly 
above all that we can ask or think. And if he is 
pleased to condescend so far, w^hat have we to say 
against it? That blessed truth, "The bodies of 
believers, being still united to Christ, do rest in their 



92 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

graves 'until the resurrection," that has ccanforted so 
many on their way down to the grave, and so many 
weeping at graves, is no theological fancy ; for the 
bodies of believers are made members of Christ on 
purpose that hereafter they may be fashioned "like 
unto his glorious body," and so, reunited to the 
glorified spirit shall both soul and body be forever ' 
with the Lord. 

The divine truth, that every believer in Christ is 
a member of his body, is no mere barren theory. 
The Scripture abounds in statements of its practical 
results. One of these is, that we are crucified with 
Christ. He did not only die for our sins, but as the 
head of the body, which is the church. Did his 
death satisfy the penal demands of the law ? then by 
his death every believer is regarded as having also 
satisfied its penal demands, so that it has no further 
demands against us. Or, to use the language of 
Holy Scripture, than which there can be nothing 
more accurate, ''There is, therefore, now no con- 
demnation to them who are in Christ Jesus," — that 
is, united to hioi, members of his bod}^, — for when 
Christ died, the penal demands of the law were fully 
met, so that our guilt rested on no member of that 
inanimate corpse, and precisely so in the view of our 
Judge it rests on no member of that spiritual body 
whose Head then and there died for it ; for they are 
all included in that Head. This is a truth so abun- 



VITAL UXION WITH CHRIST, 93 

dant in comfort that the Holy Ghost expresses it in 
various ways, in order that we may not fail to see, 
and seeing to enjoy it. So, in another place, we are 
" dead with him." Again, " we are buried with him." 
Now, Christ "died unto sin once," and so '^death 
hath no more dominion over him;" that is, he died 
to the condemning power of sin, so that the penalty 
could never again be required at his hand ; and if he 
is thus forever freed from the power of the law to 
condemn, so also is every member of his spiritual 
body, for he and they are one. Is there nothing 
practical in all this? — no depth of peace and joy in 
God, such as thought cannot fathom, and such as 
will require eternity for these hearts fully to enjoy? 
Inspiring as this is, however, it is not all. Scrip- 
ture adds, that, by virtue of this union to Christ, 
"we are quickened together with him;" that is, 
"made alive again with him ; " or, " we are raised up 
together with him," in his resurrection. And how 
was Christ raised up? He died, bowed down under 
the load of our sin ; at the moment of death that 
burden rolled off from him forever, and then he 
rose eternally accepted, to be beloved not only in 
himself, but as our Redeemer. The beloved Son is 
henceforth the beloved Saviour. Hear him going 
down into the valley of the shadow of death saying, 
"As the Father hath given me commandment, even 
so I do." Think with what interest the Father 



94 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

looked on such obedience even unto death, and in 
the liglit of that, look up to the divine delight with 
which the same Father welcomed him from the 
grave. And, amazing grace ! all that divine 
satisfaction with him and with his work our Saviour 
shares with us. Who can enter into such heights 
and depths of merc}^? Yet Christ does not transfer 
this delight of the Father in him over to us, as 
though it were something he could spare. He still 
retains it. He could not forego one iota of the joy 
set before him, but he shares it with us, and glorious 
as is that divine complacence, it is more glorious 
still when we are joint heirs with Christ in its 
enjoyment. When the heart is full of such truth, 
it is like stepping into heaven before the time. If 
any are not taught of God to apprehend it, it must 
seem incomprehensible. But if the Spirit reveals to 
us this truth of Christ, we are far beyond the slow 
help of human words; — a sinner, so one with the 
Saviour rising from the tomb, as to be partaker of 
the favor with which he is regarded of the Father ! 
Let others expatiate here if they can ; but let us 
lay our faces in the dust, and in silent reverence 
adore. 

In our most favored moments, the radiance of this 
truth shines down from all parts of the sky of Holy 
Scripture. The expression, "We are made the 
righteousness of God," startles us by its boldness ; 



VITAL UXIOX WITH C BUI ST. 95 

but the additional words ^^iii him," that is, as mem- 
bers of his spiritual body, help us to climb even to 
such a height. So, too, when an apostle says, 
"Your life is hid with Christ in God," this fact of 
vital union with a risen Saviour helps us to appre- 
hend such exceeding glory. The same truth shows 
us how children of wrath can be lifted up to " fellow- 
ship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus 
Christ : " fellowship in work and spirit, and aim and 
joy, because of fellowship in life. Out of Christ all 
the exceeding great and precious promises oul}^ tan- 
talize our longing hearts ; but as members of his 
body "we are partakers of the promise in Christ." 
Apart from him that everlasting covenant, "I will 
not turn away from them to do them good, but I 
will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not 
depart from me," always seems like an inaccessible 
Paradise, just as Eden must have appeared to our 
first parents when the cherubim and the flaming sword 
forbade their return. But, united to Christ, we are in 
that Paradise, and the gates that else forbade our 
entrance now forbid our ever o;oino^ forth ; for that 
covenant, in all its fulness, "is confirmed to us of 
God in Christ." We are "blessed with all spiritual 
blessings in heavenly places in Christ ; " " rooted 
and built up in him," "we grow up into him in all 
things," j'ea, "we are made complete in him." 
Truths which we could once look at only afar oflf. 



96 



GLIMPSES OF CJIIilST. 



with a deep gulf between, are now among the green 
pastures where the shepherd maketh us to lie down 
in quiet enjoyment. 

There is an expression, also, in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, xii. 10, that both iUustrates and is illus- 
trated by this union to Christ ; for if we are " par- 
takers of his life," it is not strange if we are, also, 
'^partakers of his holiness." Even that bold 
language of Peter, about being "partakers of the 
divine nature," is only a ray of the brightness of this 
vital union streaming down through the darkness to 
light us home to its full fruition, when, seated to- 
gether with Christ, on his throne, "we shall judge 
angels." 

Does not that prayer of Christ, "that they all may 
be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, 
that they also may be one in us," also refer to this 
union with Christ, and through him with the Father? 
Who can be content to limit this to the external 
union of Christians in one church, or of different 
churches in one spirit of love? Do not the words, 
"as thou. Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they 
also may be one in us," point to some heavenly re- 
lation of the members of the bod}^ of Christ to God, 
which, now "dark with excess of light," can be 
known only when in heaven we know what it is to 
be heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ? 
It is blasphemous to think of sharing in any incom- 



VITAL UNION WITH CHRIST. 97 

municable attribute of Godhead ; j'et when we read, 
"I ill them, and thou in me, that they may be made 
perfect in one, and that the world may know that 
thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me," mere 
Christian fellowship with each other seems a mean- 
ing all too small for words like these. Our Im- 
manuel here introduces us into a fellowship with 
God, through his incarnation, and our union with 
him, which words can neither express, nor our minds 
at present comprehend. We can only rejoice in hope 
of this glory of God, till our apprehension of union 
with Christ shall prepare us for these heavenly 
things ; for Christ tells us that there are truths by 
the side of which even regeneration by the Holy 
Ghost is a mere " earthly thing." Blessed and holy 
are they to whom Christ shall reveal these mysteries ; 
fft.' in them truly his love passeth knowledge, and in 
knowing it, we shall be filled with all the fulness of 
God. 

We cannot work out this union for ourselves, 
when even the nature of it is so great a mystery. 
Before a mechanic can make a given article, he must 
understand its construction ; but God alone under- 
stands how a soul, dead in sins, is made a living 
member of a living Saviour. Must we then sit still 
and resign ourselves to fate? Not so! "Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," 
— not "thou shalt save thyself," but "thou shalt be 



98 GLIMPSES OF CHEIST. 

saved." God shall save us ; for while we are begin- 
ning to trust in a personal Saviour, God is uniting us 
to Christ, a member of his spiritual body. Along- 
side of our looking unto Jesus, advances this divine 
work, wrought in us by One able to do exceeding 
abundantly above all that we ask or think. We have 
only to put ourselves into the hands of Christ, and 
let him make us a branch in the true vine. In 
order to nourish our body, we need neither under- 
stand nor oversee the processes of that living chem- 
istry that assimilates food to its substance. We eat, 
and God does the rest. So here, as sure as we 
"look unto Jesus," he who said, "Look unto me, 
and be ye saved," will not prove faithless to his 
promise. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ABIDING LIFE IN CHRIST. 

C^HE Bible reveals truth which we shall 
(t| p study through eternity ; so it is not strange 
if we cannot fully fathom it to-day. We 
may always understand enough for present sanctifi- 
cation, and though there are passages which we 
cannot master so fully as we wish, yet the study of 
them is never without profit. We cannot ponder one 
of the things hard to be understood without finding 
some new treasure. Just as working among per- 
fumes imbues us with their fragrance, though we 
carry away no appreciable weight, so holy Scrip- 
ture never sends us away from its careful study 
unrewarded. 

There is an utterance of the beloved disciple, 
which every Christian longs to understand more 
perfectly. He says that ^^ Whosoever is born of God 
doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, 
and he cannot sin because he is born of God ; " and 
though the present attempt to explain it may still 
leave much to be desired, yet it is pleasant to know 

99 



100 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

that attention cannot be called to it, however imper- 
fectly, without some spiritual good. 

The first requisite for a correct understanding of 
this Scripture is a right apprehension of what it is to 
be born of God ; for the " not committing sin" de- 
pends on being born of God, and the fact that one 
cannot sin rests on the same foundation. The ex- 
pression, "born of God," forbids us to think of a 
change brought about by man, either in himself or 
in his fellow-men. The babe is not born of itself, 
and whosoever believes on the name of Jesus Christ 
is born, "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor 
of the will of man, but of God." So that the Chris- 
tian is not called " a Son of God " by way of meta- 
phor, but he is made so in fact. In regeneration 
God makes us partakers of the life of Christ, so 
that we become partakers of his holiness. We are 
members of his body, and holy Scripture even teaches 
us that we become partakers of the divine nature. 
Not meaning, of course, that the finite can become 
infinite, or aspire to any share in the incommunica- 
ble attributes of Godhead ; but just as every son is 
partaker of the nature of his parent, so, by being 
born of God, we become, through Christ, partakers 
of the moral nature of God. Christ is the vine, and 
we are the branches ; and while, on our part, it was 
believinof on Christ that brou2:ht us into this vital 
union with the Lord, on the part of God it was such 



ABIDING LIFE IX CURIST. 101 

an ensraftino: of us into the vine that it is not we 
that live, but Christ that liveth in us. The current 
of spiritual life in the renewed heart flows also 
through the heart of God, as our Saviour says, " I 
am in my Father, and j^ou in me, and I in you." 
So much is involved in being born of God. Out- 
wardly there is a change of conduct ; but that is 
owing to a change of heart ; and if we trace that 
back to its final cause, we will find it in this, being 
made partakers of the life of Christ, 

Now, as the blessed results, "sinneth not," and 
"cannot sin," are made dependent, not on our efforts 
and prayers, but on this vital union with Christ, it 
becomes us to consider it well. Yet let no one un- 
derstand that those results wdll take place without 
effort and prayer, or that it is no matter whether w^e 
strive or sit in idleness. If we have this vital union 
with God, it will manifest itself in spiritual activity ; 
and yet, because this activity is the manifestation 
of a life in Christ, if we would have a sure ground 
of hope, we must go back to that life. The Holy 
Ghost teaches this, when he says that "whoso- 
ever is born of God, sinneth not ;" not because he 
prays and strives, but because ^' his seed remaineth 
in him ; " and " he cannot sin ; " not because he loves 
holiness and hates sin, but because " he is born of 
God." A child notices two trees growing side by 
side. One of them is an oak, the other an elm. He 



102 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

distinguishes them by their leaves, their bark, and 
general outline, without going back to the causes of 
that difference, or thinking why the elm-tree never 
produces oak-leaves, or why the oak never bears the 
slender, pendulous branches of the elm. A natural- 
ist goes back at once to the difference in the life of 
the two, and knows that, because of that essential 
distinction, the one can never yield the products of 
the other. Yet, because he jSxes attention on this 
inward distinction, lying back of its outward mani- 
festations, it does not follow that these last are either 
useless or unnecessary. Precisely so, the Bible 
statement, that our not sinning depends on what is 
done in us by the Author of regeneration, does not 
deny one of the results that indicate regeneration, 
but only teaches us to dig deep, and build our hope 
on an immovable foundation. To a stranger the 
house may seem to stand on the grassy turf, or grow 
out of the gravelled walk, or stand on the city pave- 
ment ; but if we who live in it have not dug down 
below them all, to a surer foundation, it will be to 
our perpetual sorrow. 

If so much depends on this being born of God, 
let us note it carefully. The common idea of it is, 
that just as Christ changed the water into wine at 
Cana of Galilee, so what Scripture calls the old man 
is chansfed into the new. It is true that the same 

o 

person is renewed ; there is no change in the personal 



ABIDING LIFE IN CHRIST, 103 

icleiitit}'. The Cliriatian of to-day is the same per- 
son who was impenitent yesterday. But let us re- 
member that "the old man" denotes not the whole 
person, but evil in its principles, the germ of all the 
sin that appears in outward act ; while "the new man" 
denotes the new principle of life as such, not a per- 
son, but a seminal principle in a person. Moreover, 
if '' the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, 
neither indeed can be," how can it be renewed? 
Indeed, is it not devoted to a lingering death, as it 
is written, " Our old man is crucified with Christ." 
Can anything thus devoted to destruction be made 
over? Besides, Christians after regeneration are 
exhorted to " put oflf the old man, which is corrupt ; " 
and how can they do so if it has been already 
chanij^ed into the new man? 

The Bible is not given to teach us philosophy ; 
and yet the Holy Ghost, who searcheth all things, 
yea, the deep things of God, may have a view of 
truth in all its parts, which is as much truer than 
our philosophy, as the horizon of his view is larger, 
and his knowledge more exhaustive. We may ex- 
ercise a more divine wisdom in conforming our 
philosophy to the word of God than in bending that 
word to our philosophy. When holy Scripture says, 
^' I will take away the stony heart," and adds, "A 
new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will 
I put within you," let us take care how we assert 



104 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

that the new one is the old made over. Would not 
the same principle require us to affirm that the sins 
which God cast into the depth of the sea reappear 
in the holy acts of his children ? The apostle says 
to the churches of Galatia who had received the 
Spirit by the hearing of faith, "The flesh lusteth 
against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, 
and these are contrary the one to the other, so that 
ye cannot do the things that ye would." How can 
the old nature contend with the new, if the one has 
been changed into the other ? Does not this conflict 
of nature with grace in every Christian heart indi- 
cate that the old man is not destroyed, but only 
dethroned, and so fights to recover his throne? 
Take an illustration from the world of matter, 
v/hich seems designed to furnish the most admirable 
tj^pes of spiritual things. What are called the first 
teeth in children are not changed into the second, 
but the germs of these last grow up immediately 
under the first, which are eaten away as the new 
teeth advance, till nothing remains but the surface, 
that is at length displaced without eflfort. 

Sometimes, however, the new tooth slips by the 
old, and comes to the surface alongside of it. In 
that case the first one must be forcibly extracted to 
avoid a permanent deformity ; and in how many 
cases, where this new life fails to eat away the old, 



ABIDIXG LIFE IX CHBIST, 105 

are sore afflictions needed to prevent eternal de- 
formity. 

The text speaks of the seed of the regenerate 
remaining in him. The seed of a tree Avhich re- 
maineth in it is not the contents of the seed vessel, 
for that, having grown on the tree, ripens and falls 
off, but that which remaineth in it is its vital power 
of development in the line of its own nature ; and 
so here it is not the word of God abiding in us, but 
the seminal principle of that new life created in us 
by the Spirit, which groweth up unto the measure of 
the stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus. In 
the passage quoted from Galatians, Paul distin- 
guished two seminal principles, — one of sin, called 
the flesh, not changed into the principle of holiness, 
but coexisting with it in the renewed soul. While the 
Christian remains on earth his new life is hindered 
by the old ; but that disappears at death, leaving this 
free to enjoy uninterrupted fellowship with God 
through eternity. Already the life of Christ in the 
soul so prevails over the principle of sin as to give 
character to the entire person, and sin is only a tem- 
porary hindrance of that life which in heaven en- 
tirely and forever disappears. 

If we understand the expressions, "sinneth not," 
''cannot sin," of the new life by itself, they would 
be literally true, and in that case there would be no 
trouble in' understanding them ; for the new man 



106 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

cannot sin, not in any sense, or in the least degree ; 
for is it not the life of God in the soul of man ? 
And is not that the same in essence which it shall 
be forever ? The graft growing in the old stock to- 
day is the same that shall grow in Paradise ; only 
now it lives in the old stock, but then it shall have 
roots of its own, and both root and plant shall live 
in Christ ; instead of a heavenly plant growing in 
an unkindly soil, and under an inclement sky, shall 
be that same plant growing in its native soil, and 
under congenial skies. All this is simple enough in 
theory, but where shall we find it in fact? Who 
can find on earth this new life disconnected from 
the old? Then we must look at it as it exists in 
connection with it, and, so viewing it, we shall find a 
meaning of this Scripture at once comforting to the 
Christian ^nd alarming to the hypocrite. 

It will be comforting to the Christian ; for while 
he could never apply to himself what was true of 
the new life alone, he can enjoy and give thanks to 
God for what is true of him just as he is, because 
of this new life. " He delights in the law of God 
after the inward man ; " here is the result of regen- 
eration. "But he sees another law in his members, 
warrinsf ao^ainst the law of his mind, and brinoins^ 
him into captivity to the law of sin which is in his 
members ; " here are the remains of his old nature. 
So situated, he could never find joy in what is true 



ABIDING LIFE IN CHRIST. 107 

of the new life alone. But show him that the apos- 
tle had just said, "If we say that we have no sin, 
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us ; " 
show him that the divine testimony is not lohat- 
soever is born of God, — that is, the new life alone, 
— but 267iosoever, — that is, the person in whom it 
dwells ; show him, also, that the " sinning not" is the 
result of that indwelling, the new life drawing to 
itself the vital force of the whole man, so that the 
old nature loses its power to control the character ; 
and do you not fill him with peace in believing? 
Let any Christian say whether these things do not 
minister to his joy in God? And are they not 
profitable ? For while they do not puff us up with 
the notion that we have already attained, or are al- 
ready perfect, they yet lift us beyond the reach of 
fear. They disclose the all-sufiSciency of the provis- 
ion made for our victory over all sin, and the cer- 
tainty of that victory. They are at once exhorta- 
tion and consolation ; we feel bound not to sin, and 
we are assured that we cannot sin ; for that new life 
abideth and shall prevail. 

We enjoy watching the daily growth of a favorite 
flower. What a progress in loveliness ! what a suc- 
cession of beauties, each going beyond the last, and 
reaching toward the next, like steps in a stairway 
of glory ! That is delightful ; and yet it is as if it 
had no glory, by the side of this glory that excelleth ; 



108 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

for here is not a plant that floiirisheth in the morn- 
ing, and in the evening is cut down and withereth, 
but one that shall flourish forever in Paradise. It 
grows in the heart, sealing it as the chosen dwelling 
of the Most High. Then, while we watch its divine 
unfolding, is the blessed feeling, "This is God's 
pledge of my deliverance from sin ; " and that deliv- 
erance is not something to be revealed suddenly at 
some unknown point in the future, but it is even 
now begun. While this divine life abides within us, 
we cannot sin. But how long shall it abide? The 
answer is, " His seed remaineth in him ;" remaineth 
all through cold and storm, and wdien winter shall 
no longer chill, then, delivered from uncongenial 
association with depravity, it shall enter on its own 
eternal growth in heaven. So full of comfort is 
this Scripture, which to so many true disciples sounds 
like the sentence of their exclusion from the society 
of saints. Instead of smiting, it anoints with the oil 
of gladness ; instead of covering our sky w4th clouds, 
it lights up our darkest hour with the joy of our 
Lord. 

It has been intimated that this Scripture is not 
only comforting to the Christian, but also full of 
alarm to the hypocrite. It is so because, if we 
understand the statement, that "whosoever is born of 
God doth not commit sin" of the new man alone, 
while the old man exists at the same time in 



ABIDIXG LIFE IX CHRIST, 109 

the same heart, then may sinners, while indulging 
in sin, assume that their feet are in the way of life ; 
for, whatever of intellectual approval of goodness 
may exist within them, — and even heathen tell us 
they approve the good while they choose the evil ; 
whatever of ineffectual desire of good they may 
cherish, — and a man may desire religion for the sake 
of its advantages, while he does not choose it in it- 
self at all ; whatever of joy may arise from a hope 
of heaven, — and many a one who will never enter 
heaven is more sure of admission there than some 
true disciples ; these things hypocrites count as so 
many certain evidences that they are born of God. 
A hypocrite is not necessarily conscious of hypoc- 
risy ; he may deceive himself more effectually than 
he imposes on his fellow-men. Indeed, so strong 
may be his assurance of his own piety, that, though 
the proofs of his impenitence meet him at every 
turn, he does not see them; for he says, "These 
are imperfections, and every Christian is imperfect ;" 
"these are the remaining corruptions of which all 
Christians complain." He may eyen say of delib- 
erate transgressions, what the struggling apostle 
said of evil susfsrestions which he refused as soon as 
suggested, "Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but 
sin that dwelleth in me ; " thus vainly calling that 
exceptional which is his truest self, and laying to 
the charge of temptation the natural outgrowth of 

10 



110 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

an unchanged heart. In this way ma}^ hypocrites 
wrest this, as they do also the other Scriptures, to 
their own destruction. But that every such mouth 
may be stopped, it is written not whatsoeYer, but 
whosoevev, is born of God doth not commit sin ; 
telling all such that unless the new man moulds the 
character and shapes the life, they have no right to 
dream that they are born of God. If a man does 
not relish spiritual things for their own sake ; if 
God's truth is tolerated only as it is made palatable 
by eloquence or genius ; if religious duties are 
endured only as they are associated with taste and 
rejSnement ; if a hope of heaven is the great object, 
and not present obedience ; if sin be counted a 
delight, and refrained from only lest it mar eternal 
joys, as a voluptuary shuns excess lest it unfit for 
future pleasure ; if one deliberately advances in sin 
to what he deems the utmost limit consistent with 
salvation : let him not delude himself with the idea 
that he is born of God. He has no seed of holiness 
to remain within him. He who is born of God 
has the feelings pf a child of God, and they do not 
consist in mercenary selfishness, least of all in that 
baseness that would enjoy sin to the last morsel con- 
sistent with escape from hell. Whosoever is born 
of God doth not commit sin. He does not intend 
to do so. He does^not wish it ; and if, in a moment 
of less vigilant watch, the wave of impulse bears him 



ABIDING LIFE IX CHRIST. Ill 

away, be cannot rest till be return. It is to sucb that 
tbe apostle says, " If any man sin, we have an advo- 
cate with tbe Father, even Jesus Christ the right- 
eous ; " so that, pardoned and restored, it is still 
true of him, that be sinneth not, nor can he indulge 
in sin, for he is born of God. The life which is in 
him, through union with Christ, will not suffer him 
to go contrary to the known desire of God. 

These things show tiiat there is a real difference 
between the church and tbe world ; not between all 
nominally in the church and those outside of it, but 
between every true child of God and all others. 
They may wear no badge of outward distinction ; we 
may not tell them apart in the streets ; but while 
the one is born of God, and the other knows nothing 
of that change, there is a real difference in their 
hearts that shall forever justify the difference in their 
eternal portion. The world may cavil at the con- 
trast revealed in Scripture between eternal life and 
eternal death, and ask where is the difference in 
men to warrant it. The answer is to be found in 
this being born of God ; and it is all-sufficient. Hyp- 
ocrites may fill up the space between the people of 
God and the men of the world, so that superficial 
observers shall not notice the dividing line. The 
children of God may fi^ll very far short of their high 
calling, bat still their divine life, received from 
Christ and maintained in him, shall warrant forever 



112 GLIMPSES OF carasT, 

all that distinguishes heaven from hell. Men may 
now judge by appearance, and so judge an unright- 
eous judgment ; but in that day when appearances 
are stripped off and the essential life is revealed, 
^^then shall ye return and discern between the 
righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth 
God and him that serveth him not." 

There are men in the church who regard piety as 
something wrought out by eacjh Christian for himself; 
and, viewed in one light, the difference between a 
Christian and others is that he believes in Christ, 
while they refuse to believe. But running parallel 
with this act of the believer is another act of God, 
imparting this life that is in Christ ; and it is only as 
we keep our eye on this that we can appreciate our 
high calling. So long as we confine our views to our 
own acts, our conceptions of Christian privilege, 
Christian hope and joy will be very unworthy. 
This Scripture teaches us to go behind all our own 
doings, when we would find a ground for hope and 
joy. It bids us rest in what God does in us, and 
procures for us. It is because he is born of God, that 
the child of God cannot sin ; and, if we would know 
the full meaning of these words, we must look away 
from ourselves, and let our eyes follow this pointing 
of the Holy Ghost to the work of God, When we 
look on piety as made up of acts which we perform 
and feelings which we exercise, all is dimness and 



ABIDING LIFE IX CnUIST, 113 

doubt ; for there is so much imperfection in the acts, 
and so nauch uncertaint}' about our contuiuingto put 
them forth. But, viewed as the manifestation of 
a divine life in us, whose author and finisher 
is Christ, then we see that our feet are set upon 
a rock, for God establisheth our goings, and the 
siglit of that puts a new song in our mouths, even 
praise unto our God. 

Some refrain from dwelling on such views, lest 
thoughts of this divine agency should prevent 
sinners from exercising their own. But do they 
exercise it even then ? And may it not be that souls 
truly in earnest fail to grow, just because this truth, 
of ''God working in them to Avill and to do," does 
not encourage them to work out their own salvation ? 

It is only w^hen we look on piety as a life from God, 
in God, and to be spent with God, that we appre- 
ciate it. Then the language of 'the beloved disciple, 
strong as it is, is not too strong. We can believe it 
in all its fulness when we look on it as the result of 
the life of Christ in his people. And as we think 
of the eternity of this life, we can look forward with 
holy boldness to all the perils yet before us, and en- 
joy a foretaste of everlasting bliss. When we are 
conscious in heaven of the fulness of everlasting 
life, then shall we appreciate what it is to have been 
born of God. Adam, though holy, fell ; but he who 
lives this life in Christ shall never fall. 

10* 



CHAPTER X. 

THE HUMAN SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 

/j^ HEIST is altogether lovely, but we are so 
^3 ) imperfect ourselves, and so accustomed to 
^ defects in others, that when we find one per- 
fection in him, we are prone to dwell on it exclu- 
sively, never thinking whether there are not others 
equally worthy of our notice. The crowning glory 
of Christ in the eyes of a sinner is that he is a 
Saviour from sin, — ^'able to save unto the uttermost 
all that come unto God by him." Let us never lose 
sight of this view of Christ, for of all others it is 
the most important as well as the most precious. 

Still, this does not manifest the whole of his glory, 
and to those who know him as their Savionr he 
reveals himself in other endearing relations, in each 
of which we behold his glory. Some of these have 
more particular reference to eternity ; others to the 
present life. Perhaps these last have been unduly 
neglected. We have looked on Christ as the Lord 
of glory in heaven, till we sometimes forget that he is 
our " brother," and, though unseen, is as truly with us 

lU 



THE HUMAN SYMPATHY OF CHBIST, 115 

now as he ever shall be. Does not the neglect of 
these views of Christ occasion an undue strangeness 
between the flock and their Shepherd? While we 
expect to meet him in the sanctuary and the closet, 
do we not shut him out too much from our daily 
life? Instead of rejoicing iu the Lord always, do 
we not insensibly defer such joy to another world, 
as though it were one of the treasures to be laid up 
in heaven ? But surely it is not so scarce there that 
we need starve ourselves now in order to have 
abundance then. Christ does not present himself 
to us only in connection with our eternal interests. 
He knoAvs how men value benefits pertaining to the 
present life, and so he offers himself to them as a 
very present help in trouble, — a High Priest who 
can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. 
We are then only following his own leading in con- 
sidering him as our sympathizing friend. 

We might do this by meditating on those gracious 
words, "Let not your heart be troubled," for they tell 
us that, instead of an austere being, intent only on 
eternal things, he has an affectionate interest in our 
present comfort. These words fall on the ear like the 
tones of parental love, reminding us of that Scripture, 
"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I 
comfort you." But incidents illustrating truth im- 
press us more than abstract statements, and there- 
fore let us listen to his last words to his mother just 



116 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

before he died ; for among all the precious scenes of 
his life and death none reveals so clearly the tender- 
ness of his sympathy with us as men. 

Look at him : he is nailed to the cross, blood 
trickles from his torn temples ; it drops from those 
extended hands, those wounded feet ; in his foce 
bodily agony and mental anguish blend with perfect 
submission, and a benevolence of which w^e can only 
say, it is divine. Round about the cross are sol- 
diers, familiar with the sight of pain. They mock 
his sufferings. But what else could we expect from 
them ? Outside of these stand his own people. Their 
neighbors — perhaps members of their own fami- 
lies — have felt his power to heal ; themselves have 
heard the gracious words that fell from his lips. 
But these also revile the sufferer, and taunt and 
scoff*. Hemmed in among these, like a few lambs 
among a herd of wolves, stand four disciples ; three 
of them are women, and one of these, his mother. 
Where she was during that trial we do not know. 
Perhaps she heard — for she could not look on — 
the scourging, every stroke of which she felt. Or 
she may have arrived just in time to see the close 
of agonies mercy had prevented her witnessing till 
now. With what feelings she stands there words 
may not tell, though mothers may understand; few 
even of them, however, have known such sorrow. 
Eve had wept over the corpse of Abel ; but what 



THE HUMAN SYMPATHY OF CHRIST, 117 

was her grief to that of Mary standing at the cross 
of her still-living Son? Yet we hear no passionate 
ontcry. Her grief is too deep for that. A sword 
pierces through her own soul also, but it is in silent 
anguish too intense for tears. She is silent ; but 
round about her is no silence. She may not sup- 
port that drooping head, or bathe those quivering 
wounds. She may not utter one word of sympathy, 
while others exult in his agonies. Is she, too, rec- 
ognized as the mother of the Crucified ? Then it is 
some comfort if, by drawing the attention of his ene- 
mies to herself, she can secure for him a moment's 
relief from bitter words. The mother gladly shields 
her dying Son by interposing herself between him 
and the sharp arrows of the mighty. The pains of 
death take hold of him. Untold responsibilities with 
reference to the redemption of a world are crowded 
into this critical moment. The Lord lays on him the 
iniquities of us all. The Father, with whom he has 
enjoj^ed an^ternity of uninterrupted love, even He 
forsakes him who is made to be sin for us. Can he 
in such extremity of woe notice that mothers grief? 
His eye takes in the whole ; his sympathy embraces 
all. In the depths of his own, his heart shares all 
her affliction, and at a time when we engross the sym- 
pathies of others for ourselves, Christ forgets him- 
self. He could not forget his suffering, — that was im- 
possible ; agony like his could not be one moment 



118 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

out of miud ; but in the very sorest of it he comforts 
her. The last use he makes of his eyes in that 
gathering darkness is to look with unutterable ten- 
derness on his mother, and almost his last words 
previous to his dying cry are words of affection for 
her; brief, indeed, but revealing a care as thought- 
ful as when with her in her quiet home. He does 
not call her mother, lest that word, recalling a thou- 
sand tender memories, should crush the heart ah^eady 
breaking; or, if she has not yet been recognized as 
his mother, he would spare her the insults that name 
would call forth. "Woman," saith he, "behold thy 
son." His hand, nailed to the cross, cannot point to 
that son. Agony forbids the use of many words, if 
indeed they could be heard above those blasphemies ; 
but his eye directs her to the beloved disciple, and, 
looking on him, he says, " Behold thy mother ! " 
What think you were their feelings at that moment? 
Unprotected among his murferers, how did she re- 
ceive this token of love in death ? And how was 
the heart of the disciple thrilled by this proof of the 
confidence of his Master? But could Mary and 
John speak to us they would say, Forget us, to 
think only of Christ. Let our connection with that 
event only render impressive the loving kindness 
which he feels for all. 

Look, then, at the tender sympathy beaming in 
these words of Jesus. His mother, as is generally 



THE HUMAN SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 119 

supposed, was now a widow, and, unable even to 
present a lamb for a burnt-offering during the life 
of Joseph, it is not very probable that she was 
in better circumstances now. He, whose divine 
power wrought so many miracles for others, had 
never enriched his friends. If his parents were 
poor, so was he. During his life he had not where 
to lay his head, and now at his death he had no 
earthly possessions to leave to his mother. He 
owned no dwelling in Nazareth. He possessed 
neither field nor olive-srrove in the surroundino^ 
valleys. No terrace on these hill-sides was entered 
in his name on the pages of the Roman register. 
Even his garments, which Mary might have treas- 
ured up with motherly care, were snatched away 
from her, perhaps to teach her and us that the only 
valuable relic of Christ is that faith which makes us 
members of his spiritual body. 

Amid his own unutterable anguish, that Son 
thinks of the solitary life that awaited his wid- 
owed mother, and therefore, that poverty may not 
be added to the rest, he provides her a home and a 
protector ; and mark his selection. He might com- 
mit her to the hospitality of Joseph of Arimathea, or 
request those women who had ministered to him of 
their substance to transfer their kindness to his 
mother. He could make arrano^ements for her to 
spend the rest of jier days in elegant ease, amid the 



120 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

refinements of affluence and taste. But not thus 
does Christ measure the essentials of happiness. 
Not thus does he read the heart of his pious 
mother. Instead of such a provision for her old 
age, he commends her to the care of the fisher- 
man of Galilee, whom shortly after we find toiling 
all night for her support, perhaps in the same boat 
that had so often witnessed the miracles of his Lord. 
But why did Christ choose such a humble home for 
his aged mother? For the same reason that he still 
selects such for by far the greater number of those 
w4io shall be partakers of his glory. 

Blessed be his name that he, who knows how 
prone we are to look on the seen and temporal, 
rather than on the glories round about the throne, 
instead of losing patience with us, makes even out- 
ward circumstances work toother with all thino^s 
for our good ; and, if he gives us homes so attractive 
as to tempt us to forget our home in heaven, yet, in 
them also, he so deals with us as to make us feel 
their emptiness, while he sweetly draws us to him- 
self for comfort. 

But besides this, was there not a special reason in 
the case before us? Jesus knew how his mother 
loved him, not only as her son, but as her Saviour. 
He knew how she w^ould love to speak of him after 
he was gone, not only as her child, but as the Word 
which was in the beginning with God, and was God. 



TBE HUMAN SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 121 

He knew how she would remember this scene, not 
only as his death, but as the sacrifice of the Lamb 
of God that taketh away the sin of the world. 
And so he leaves her with one who would enter 
into all her feelings. He knew how that disciple 
would converse with her of the Son of man, the 
beloved teacher, the loving friend, and also of the 
Divine Redeemer, who had gone to intercede for 
them at the right hand of the Father. He knew 
with what kindred sympathies they would recount 
the scenes of his earthly life, — she telling the things 
laid up in her heart concerning his childhood, and 
he narrating many an event on the shores of Gennes- 
aret and in quiet Bethany or busy Jerusalem, while 
she had been absent at her mountain home. What 
accounts could he give of evenings in the house of 
Lazarus ; that vision on the mount of glory, con- 
cerning which till now his lips were sealed ; and then 
that night in the upper chamber, and Gethsemane ; 
in the palape of the high priest, with Herod and 
Pilate, down to this last sad scene they share 
together ! How much, too, could he relate to her 
of the many other things that Jesus did, which, if 
they should be written, every one, it seemed that 
even the world itself could not contain the books ! 
Look at these things, and saj^ whether that Son could 
have selected a more congenial home for his mother. 

If communion in sorrow hallows human intercourse ; 
11 



122 GLIMPSES OF cnrasT, 

if fellowship with Christ transforms into his image, 
what holy joy henceforward filled that home ! What 
endearing memories pervade their worship of him 
now bleedinsr on the cross ! What tender recollec- 

o 

tions hallow his praises ! Was not the Savionr an 
unseen inmate of their dwelling, mingling in all their 
communings concerning himself? — not absent, but 
only invisible, even as now he manifests himself to 
those that believe upon his name. 

Because he is invisible, even his own may for- 
get that he islmmanuel, " God with us," and address 
their prayers as to a distant Saviour. But the Lord 
Jesus Christ is the same j^esterday, to-day, and for- 
ever. Even on earth he spake of the Son of man 
w^ho is in heaven ; and is he less omnipresent now ? 
Not only so, but those tender sympathies that led 
him to weep at the grave of Lazarus are just as 
fresh and tender to-day as then. That love which, 
just before going to Gethsemane, could say to 
his disciples, "Let not your heart be trojLibled," and 
utter words of heavenly consolation, that their joy 
might be full, has not lost any of its fervor ; and that 
benevolence which, when wounded for our transgres- 
sions, cared for a mother's earthly comfort, is 
the same for us that it was for Mary. Have any 
found it so ? Then no words of another can add to 
their joy ; language can give but poor expression to 
the truth which they have been taught of God. 



THE HUM Ay SYMPATHY OF CHRIST, 123 

But if any have not enjoyed these things, why not? 
Has Christ changed? Or is the fault in our 
own unbelief? If, on the cross, Christ showed 
such tender care for a disciple, now that he is 
on the throne, has he forgotten to be gracious? If 
racking pain, the crushing weight of our sins, or the 
approaching insensibility of death, could not blunt 
the tenderness of his sympathy, is there anything 
in heaven that can ? 

Some may answer, " That is not my trouble ; but 
Mary was his own mother, who had nurtured and 
cherished him, w^hile I am a stranger, and so sinful 
that he cannot have such feelin<2:s towards me." It 
may seem so ; and yet, when a certain woman once 
ascribed pre-eminent blessedness to his mother, Jesus 
answ^ered, ^^ Yea, rather blessed are they that hear 
the Word of God and keep it;" and when one 
said unto him, "Behold, thy mother and thy breth- 
ren stand without desiring to speak with thee," 
his reply was, "Who is my mother, and who are 
my brethren ? " as though no tie could be dearer than 
that W'hich binds him to the sinner w^ho believes. 
Then, that none might mistake his meaning, he 
stretched forth his hand towards his disciples, and 
said, "Behold my mother and my brethren." And 
lest some heavy-laden sinner should still hesitate 
to believe truth so precious, again he declares, 
" Whosoever shall do the will of my Father in 



124 GLIMPSES^ OF CHRIST. 

heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and 
mother." After such words from those gracious lips, 
can we longer doubt? Impossible. Our Saviour 
enters as perfectly into our feelings as he did into 
those of his mother. He shares our sorrows as 
truly as he did hers. Is it not written, concerning 
his ancient people, "that his soul was grieved for 
the misery of Israel " ? And when Saul breathed out 
threatenings and slaughter against his disciples, did 
not Christ demand, "Why persecutest thou me?^^ 
Let every believer in Jesus know assuredly that in 
"all our afflictions he is afflicted." He who doth 
not "afflict willingly" will never lay one iota more 
on us than he is willing to share with us. No 
grief of ours is beneath his notice. It cannot be so 
small that he shall not see it, or so large as to exceed 
his power to comfort. It cannot be so heavy that 
he cannot sustain both us and it, or so protracted as 
either to weary out his strength or exhaust his sym- 
pathy ; and, so far from being offended, he is as well 
pleased to have us lay over our griefs on him as he 
ever was to see his mother come to him for comfort. 
Why do we not know and enjoy the preciousness of 
the sympathy there is for us in Christ? We need 
not try to create it ; it exists already. It always has 
existed, only in our blindness we do not see it, and 
so, in our sorrows, we go without it, when faith 
might find in Christ the God of all comfort. Let 



THE HUMAN SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 125 

those burdened with care cast it all on Jesus, 
for assuredly he careth for them. Let those bur- 
dened with grief — it may be secret grief, such 
as they cannot tell to others, lest they expose the 
failings of their friend, or reveal their own — tell all 
their griefs to Jesus, and prove the all-sufficiency of 
his sympathy. Some of us have lived long in the 
world, and known its trials; others, still in the 
morning of life, have not yet known the burden and 
heat of the day ; but sorrow awaits us all. The soul 
of each of us will be exceeding sorrowful, even unto 
death. Then let us look to him Avhose soul like- 
wise suffered, on purpose that he might be able to 
succor ours. 

Let us not forget, moreover, that all this is as 
true of temporal as of spiritual trials. Christ felt 
for his mother, not only as a disciple, but as a 
woman, weak and dependent, in a selfish world. 
Not only as a joint-heir with himself, but as yet in 
the body, w^ith bodily wants and exposed to physi- 
cal distress ; and just such sympathy does he extend 
to us. He made our body, and he is interested in it 
as his handiwork. He redeemed it by his blood, 
and will hereafter fashion it like unto his own 
glorious body ; and therefore does he sympathize 
with its sufferings now. 

Let those who have the care of families, troubled 

with countless daily perplexities in the monotonous 
11* 



126 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

duties of home, trials which they would be ashamed 
to mention to a friend, but which wear away the 
strength and undermine the health, go tell them 
all to Jesus. Said Mary Lyon to her pastor shortly 
before her death, "I have many perplexities and 
troubles every day, some of them about things so 
triflino^ that I should never think of tellino^ them to 
my own mother, and yet I can carry them all to 
Christ, sure that he w^ill understand and help me ; 
and never do I go to him in vain." Are any poor, un- 
noticed, and unknown? let not this discourage them ; 
for " not many mighty, not many noble are called ; 
but God hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in 
faith, and heirs of the kingdom." We have seen the 
mother of Jesus placed, not in the mansion of the 
honorable councillor, but in the cottage of the fish- 
erman. He did not cause a flattering biography to 
paint her peaceful old age and happy death. On 
the contrary, all that we know of her after his ascen- 
sion is, that she attended the prayer-meetings in 
Jerusalem; but where she lived, or how, or when 
she died, who can tell ? Not outward wealth, but in- 
w^ard grace ; not earthly distinction, but a place in 
the Lamb's book of life ; not freedom from suffer- 
ing, but the sympathy of Jesus in it, are the marks 
of his disciples. 

If Christ is ours and we are his, there does not 
live the man so prosperous in earthly things that we 



THE HUMAN SYMPATHY OF CHIilST, 127 

need stoop to envy him. The man who knows 
Christ, however imperfectly, here, and hopes to 
know him even as also he is known hereafter, 
would go to the stake rather than change places 
with the heir of all earthly good. 

The impenitent sometimes complain that God 
overawes them so that they cannot approach him. 
But what do they say to God in Christ, — God, and 
so omnipotent to save ; man, and so their elder 
brother ! Let such look at him dying in agony such 
as others never knew, and even then, thus caring for 
his mother, and know that he offers to love them 
with the same love, to sustain them all through 
sorrow and death, and then bring them, like her, to 
his heavenly home. Soon they will need such a 
friend. In their last sickness who can help them 
like Christ ; and after it, when every other friend 
must leave us alone, who can befriend like him 
whose power to help only begins to be appreciated 
when that of all others utterly and forever fails ? 




CHAPTER XI. 

THE MUNIFICENCE OF CHKIST. 
(XJJ 

* N the discussion of religious subjects, human 
teachers may not always present truth in its 
relative proportion ; unimportant matters 
may be made too prominent, and things really funda- 
mental be comparatively^ overlooked ; but whenever 
we hear the " Verily, verily, I say unto you " of the 
Great Teacher, we may be sure of somethmg worthy 
of that note of preparation. A remarkable instance 
of this occurs in his parting address to the dis- 
ciples before his death, " Verily, verily I say unto 
you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do 
shall he do also, and greater works than these shall 
he do, because I go unto the Father." In this whole 
discourse the value of no sentence can be overrated. 
Each one is unutterably precious to his people ; 
for it contains the words spoken by Christ at his 
last interview w^ith his disciples before his death. 
Each sentence was uttered with his eye on the 
cross. It was a discourse at the first communion- 
table, when his full heart poured out comfort, not 

128 



THE MUNIFICENCE OF CHRIST, 129 

only sufficient for the disciples, then, but for all his 
people, always to the end. 

If, then, any inquire why, in a discourse Vv^here 
each word is full of holiest meaning, any one should 
be thus distinguished, the answer is, that it was 
probably meant to reassure those who, on hearing 
this statement, are startled by its strangeness, and 
doubt whether they can have heard aright. We go 
back to re-examine it, feeling it is impossible these 
words should mean just what they seem to say, and 
Christ meets us with his "Verily, verily I say unto 
you," as if to assure us that there is no mistake. 
" It may seem astonishing ; but I said it, knowing 
what I said." 

Assured on this point, the question next arises, 
Of whom does Christ say this? Does not the 
thought arise ; only the most extraordinary piety 
can aspire to such an honor, and, besides apostles, 
we fix on the holiest men of every age, martyrs, 
reformers ; w^e hardly know w^hom even of these. 
But is there not an unsuitableness betw^een the piety 
of the best of them and an honor like this ? For their 
holiness, how^ever great, is imperfect, and this honor 
is greater than that put on the perfect Saviour. They 
may have had a second conversion, as some unscriptu- 
rally speak of, or even a third, or any number of suc- 
cessive cleansings from the dross that still remains ; 
but is not dross still mingled with their gold ? w^hile of 



130 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

Christ alone it can be said, He is altogether lovely. 
The more we reflect, does not our sense of the incon- 
sistency increase? Then may we not be looking in 
the wrong direction altogether? After all, can any 
holiness in creatures be thegroundof such an honor? 
Is even the holiness of angels sufficient ; and must 
we not look elsewhere for an explanation? Then 
come back to these words of Jesus, and see if they 
throw no light on the inquiry. "Verily, verily I 
say unto you. He that believelh on me." There is the 
portrait of the persons w^e seek, drawn by the hand 
of Christ. They are described just as they ap- 
peared to His eye. And who are they? Those 
eminent, or even pre-eminent, for piety? Not that, 
or anything like that. But the whole matter is 
viewed from a different point. Christ does not 
speak of holiness in man, but only of the faith that 
unites to Himself, and so admits to a share of what 
is in Him. In the mind of Christ, the ground of 
this honor lies in Himself, and not in the disciple 
who receives it. In other words, it could not be 
conferred on us apart from Christ, and even when 
united to him, solely through virtue in Him to whom 
w^e are united, and of whom we become a part. 
Had Christ said simply, " He that believeth," the 
reference had then been to our faith, and efficacy 
in that viewed as our act. But "He that believeth 
in me^'' calls back all thought from faith to Himself. 



THE MUNIFICENCE OF CHRIST. 131 

We cannot put any other meaning into the words, if 
we would. Do our thoughts still linger about some 
supposed eflBciency in our faith ? Then why do we 
so often bewail its weakness ? Why in this instance 
are we so slow to believe the things freely given us 
of God? Do we picture to ourselves a power 
created in us by union to Christ, and then subsist- 
ing by a life of its own? But "If a man abide not 
in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, 
and men gather them, and cast them into the fire and 
they are burned." The power then comes through 
union to Christ, and only so long as that union lasts 
does this power abide in us ; for its root is in Him. 
Our completeness is not in ourselves, but in Christ. 
This distinction to some may seem strained or 
unnecessary ; and yet, if the point in question be 
true at all, it is fundamental, essential to true 
Christian enjoyment and to all progress in holi- 
ness. It tells us that our title to this or any 
other favor lies not in ourselves, but in Him. It 
turns away our thoughts from the glaring imperfec- 
tions of our holiest things, and fixes them on the 
Lord our righteousness, His fulness and His power 
to save ; He altogether lovely, and we complete 
in Him. While we looked at our holiness, the 
text pointed to a privilege as inaccessible as the 
stars. We could no more think of making it ours 
than of climbing to the sun at noon. Even when 



132 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

viewed in connection with the piety of apostles, still 
it seemed inexplicable, and we passed it over as one 
of the things hard to be understood ; so blind 
were we to this " Verily, verily I say unto you '' of 
our Redeemer. But when we see in him the foun- 
dation of this "house not made with hands," we are 
not afraid to enter, and a voice from heaven seems 
to say, " By whom also we have access by faith into 
this grace w^ierein we stand and rejoice in hope of 
the glory of God." Let us, then, draw near with a 
true heart, in the full assurance of faith, to the study 
of this heavenly grace. If any think that the effi- 
ciency must be in us, and not in Ciirist, why does he 
add, " because I go unto my Father"? On such a 
supposition, what connection can that have with the 
subject? Is it said, that he goes to the Father to 
send thence the Holy Spirit? Is, then, the indwell- 
ing Spirit a part of ourselves ? Is not that only 
another mode whereby Christ worketh to will and 
to do in them that are his ? 

We may not presume to explain how it is that Christ, 
at the right hand of the Majesty on high, is able to 
work so mightily in them that believe ; for we have 
not mastered the method of the divine operation. But 
is it not a most gracious arrangement that setting 
Christ before us as the dispenser of such favors re- 
veals him seated on the throne of his glory ? Had 
we been called to look at him on the cross, we had 



TnE MUNIFICENCE OF CHRIST. 133 

seen him working out redemption in weakness and 
in pain. But here we see it already complete. Its 
glorious results are visible on every side. Those 
divine perfections, that shone out so lovelj' even in 
his humiliation, are now lifted up into their native 
sphere, with a mode of manifestation worthy of the 
glory to be revealed, and it thrills the Christian heart 
with holiest joy to think of the glory of Christ con- 
spicuous in the midst of the throne, and there beam- 
ing out unending loveliness through endless years. 
What, then, are the greater works w^hich shall be 
done by those who believe upon his name ? Are 
they miracles ? We do not forget that these con- 
stituted no small part of the works of our Redeemer. 
But Avere they his .greatest works? Perhaps one 
would answer after this manner, and another after 
that. Then, laying aside our own thoughts, let us 
sit at the feet of Jesus, and learn his views. His 
disciples return from a missionary tour with the 
exulting announcement, "Lord, even the devils are 
subject to us through thy name." He answers, 
"Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents 
and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, 
and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwith- 
standing in this rejoice not, that the spirits are sub- 
ject unto you ; but rather rejoice because your 
names are written in heaven." Teaching that the 
eternal dwelling of the soul with God is an infinitely 

12 



134 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

greater favor than any exercise of miraculous power 
for a few clays upon earth? And what does the 
Spirit of Christ say through the apostle ? " Though 
I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mj^s- 
teries, and all know]ed£>:e, and thoiis^h I have all 
faith so that I could remove mountains, and have 
not charity, I am nothing." Is not that equally 
explicit? And while we assign to miracles their 
due importance in the economy of grace, do we not 
feel that Christ's work of redemption is greater 
than those miracles which were only means to this 
higher end ? 

Another fact needs only to be mentioned to set 
this question at rest. Our Lord wrought miracles 
in his own name ; his disciples, only in the name 
of their Master ; and how can these last be greater 
works than his? In him it was an inherent, self- 
existent power ; in them it was a delegated power, 
efficient only as they acknowledged that its efficiency 
was from him. 

If these greater works are not miracles, we need 
not look for them in any superior attainments in 
holiness. The very mention of such a thing is 
painful. Was not Christ holy ; and was not each 
apostle a sinner both before and after conversion? 
Even thouofh workinsr miracles and inditin^: the 
communications of the Holy Ghost, were they not 
continually falling into sin? One had to withstand 



TRE MUNIFICENCE OF CHRIST, 135 

another to the face and rebuke him before all, be- 
cause he was to be blamed, and this reprover of a 
chief apostle confesses his own sins. 

It w^ould seem, then, that in all things Christ had 
the pre-eminence ; and therefore the statement before 
us could not be literally true. But remember how 
Christ once compared himself to the vine, and his 
disciples to the branches. These last alone could 
never bear fruit. The vine produces them, and fruit 
on them ; and yet it is the branches that are adorned 
with those goodly ornaments. Does not that beau- 
tiful similitude furnish the key to this statement? 
Christ is the life ; he is so in himself, and in all his 
people. Not one of them had known life, had it not 
flowed from him into their souls. He giveth unto 
them eternal life, and therefore they shall never per- 
ish. But with all this his personal labors seemed 
barren in results. They only laid the foundation 
for success. The clusters do not appear on the 
main stalk, but on the branches. Disciples were 
the conspicuous agents on the day of Pentecost; 
and afterwards Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, 
Corinth, and even the ends of the earth, beheld 
their labors crowned with the most signal success. 
Wherever they preached or wrought miracles, at 
the beautiful gate of the Temple, or in Samaria, 
or among the hills and valleys of Asia Minor, 
multitudes were added to the Lord. Doubt- 



136 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

less there were many spectators of the miracles of 
Christ ill that raging throng that shouted " Crucify 
hull ! Crucify him !" It may be that some of them 
had experienced in their own bodies his power to 
heal. But when, in that same Jerusalem, many signs 
and wonders were wrought by the hands of the 
apostles, believers were the more added to the 
Lord, multitudes both of men and women. Their 
preaching was not greater than that of Christ, nor 
were their miracles ; but the results which God ac- 
complished through them were. So that Luther 
doubtless expresses the general sentiment of the 
church when he says, "For this reason greater 
works are said to be done b3^his Christians, because 
they go further with their influence than he did, and 
bring more to him than he himself did while bodily 
upon earth." 

If this be the meaning of Christ, does it not 
set before us a most precious view of Immanuel? 
He takes upon himself the painful part, that we may 
enjoy the pleasant. His is the seemingly fruitless 
toil, that ours may be the gladness of success. He 
plants, that we may reap. He once said to his dis- 
ciples, " Other men labored, and ye are entered 
into their labors." With even greater truth he 
might have said, ''I labor, and ye enter into my 
labors." But he did not boast. He left the works 
which he did to bear witness for him ; and precious 



THE MUXIFICEXCE OF CHRIST, 137 

is the testimony they utter in the ear of love. He 
laid the deep foundation, not in the sweat of his face, 
but in his blood, and having carried it up to the sur- 
face, he lets his disciples build where they can see the 
structure grow under their hands through his power 
in them. He knew how they v/hom he taught to 
pray ^' Thy kingdom come " w^ould love to see its 
coming; and so, as they successively enter into his 
kinofdom he assi^rns them those labors throu2fh which 
he breathes the breath of life into other souls. What 
a blessed intercourse that will be between the Re- 
deemer and the redeemed, when in heaven he un- 
folds his personal agency in their conversion, and 
his own efficiency in their successful efforts for the 
salvation of others ! 

And this suofSfests another view of his love. He 
knew how his disciples would mourn his absence ; 
how they would long to feel that though he had re- 
turned to the glory which he had with the Father 
before the world was, yet still he was with them in 
the battle ; and so he arranges that in each instance 
of success they may see a present Saviour. We, 
too, cannot see his face or hear his voice ; our 
name is not uttered by those sacred lips ; but we 
may detect his presence, approving our labors and 
crowning them with his success. 

And if success seems to delay, then may we in 
our measure partake of his sufferings, who loved 

12* 



138 GLIMPSES OF CRRIST. 

sinners so tenderly, and yet saw so few coming to 
him that they might have life. We read of his 
Aveeping over Jerusalem ; but Ave hear little of his 
rejoicing over converts. In this matter, with few 
exceptions, he was a man of sorrows. Oh that 
our unholy hearts could enter more deeply into 
these sorrows of the Son of man I — the feelings with 
which he saw that young man go away w^ho had 
great possessions ; the grief that prompted the 
w^ords, "how hardly shall they that have riches enter 
into the kingdom of God ! " 

If Christ so suffered then, does he now look un- 
moved on such of his people as do nothing for the 
salvation of others ? How much of sympathy ivith 
Christ do they lose ! How many an occasion of 
intimate communion with him on matters very dear 
to his heart ! Is it any wonder that such grope in 
spiritual darkness, when there is so wide a gulf be- 
tween their want of interest in the conversion of 
sinners, and that love that poured out its own blood 
for their salvation ? How must the heart that uttered 
the glowing words before us feel towards professed 
disciples who neglect a privilege so precious ! Have 
any of us been permitted to eat of the crumbs that 
fall from this table of the Master? Surely if Christ 
so honors disciples on earth, they should find their 
heaven in the sight of his glory. We should regard 
those we are allowed to bring to him, not so much 



THE MUXIFICENCE OF CHRIST. 139 

our joy and crown, as the travail of his soul, who 
hath washed both them and us from our sins in his 
own blood; and yet why speak of them apart? 
Will not both views blend together in heaven into 
one surpassing glory? Just as when in the city an 
evening congregation assembles in comparative dark- 
ness, the sudden brightening of the light reveals 
many a friend whom we had deemed a stranger, so 
will our entrance into heaven light up the connection 
of our usefulness with Christ. Our ]oj will not con- 
sist so much in a separate consciousness of bliss our- 
selves as in w^hat we see He enjoys. The gladness 
of the Head shall thrill each member of his spiritual 
body as their own. When the full meaning of the 
prayer, "I in them and thou in me, that they may be 
made perfect in one," is there revealed, it will no 
longer seem strange that Christ on earth should 
speak of his disciples doing greater works than 
those which He did. 

But we are not yet in heaven. We are here in 
the vineyard of our Master, and on every side his 
work summons us to labor. Let those w^ords of his 
teach us how to do it; not by a painful struggle 
after such holiness in ourselves as shall make us 
worthy to work for him. This we cannot have ; and, 
if any think they have it, they deceive themselves. 
How many, conscious that it is not theirs, and 
still deeming it essential, put off till to-morrow the 



140 GLIMPSES OF CRRIST. 

work which God requires to-day, and, when the mor- 
row comes, still defer it, because as far off as ever 
from such a qualification ! Christ here tells us to 
renounce forever all thought of such a qualification 
in ourselves, and look to Him. As in the matter of 
justification He bids us renounce our own righteous- 
ness, and rest in His ; so in the matter of worthiness 
to labor for God He bids us abhor ourselves, and 
stand complete in Him. Paul speaks of fightings 
without and fears within, and yet says, ^'I can do all 
things through Christ, who strengtheneth me." He 
gloried in infirmity that the power of Christ might 
rest upon him. The work which he wrought, like 
the life which he lived, was by the faith of Him who 
loved him and gave himself for him. So Paul 
sought qualification for work ; and how he wrought, 
let the world tell, indebted so much to him for the 
knowledge that it has of Christ ; let heaven say, 
filled up so much by those converted and sanctified 
through his labors. 

We need not hold back from work because un- 
worthy. We need not defer work till to-morrow, 
hoping to be more worthy. For Christ saith : 
"Verily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on 
me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater 
works than these shall he do, because I go unto my 
Father." Christ is our authority, as he says, "All 
power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 



THE MUNIFICENCE OF CHRIST. 141 

Go ye therefore and teach all nations." Christ 
is our subject. Paul determined to know nothing 
among men save Jesus Christ, and him crucified; 
and when Philip, the deacon, went down and 
preached Christ in Samaria, the people with one 
accord gave heed, and there was great joy in that 
city. Christ is our efficiency ; for even apostles 
could speak of seals of apostleship only in the 
Lord. That Lord and Saviour who wrought effect- 
ually in Peter to the apostleship of the circum- 
cision, the same was mighty in Paul towards the 
Gentiles. And to-day we have this treasure in 
earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power 
might be of him and not of man. 

The whole of the fulness of Christ, then, is our 
worthiness for work. Do we need to wait for its 
increase, or fear for its sufficiency? It is simple 
faith in Jesus that has enabled every successful 
laborer of the past to gather in his harvest for 
Christ. Nothing else is needed now to make us 
worthy to labor for God, nor ever shall be till the 
harvest of the whole earth is reaped. 



CHAPTER XII. 

SERVING CHKIST. 

/4 y^^J -^ ^^^ always interested in home life. 
The scenery of foreign lands may seem 
strange, bat in its homes we may watch 
our own movements, and recognize our own feelings. 
There are families to-day w^here Christ loves to 
make bis home, and where he is refreshed after the 
formal reception he meets elsewhere ; but the best 
interior view of a Christian home is that painted by 
Luke, at the close of the tenth chapter of his Gos- 
pel. As we look in there on Martha and Mary, we 
feel among familiar friends, and there is something 
almost heavenly in a home where Christ is visibly 
present, sitting at the table, and filling the house 
with ^^ the brightness of the Father's glory.'' We 
envy the happiness of this household, which enjoys 
on earth the bliss that cannot be ours tilfwe enter 
heaven. 

Some, perhaps, are confused, because Christ had 
just addressed Capernaum and Bethsaida as if in 
sight, and now he is entered into a certain village, 

142 



SERVING CHRIST. 143 

the evangelist does not tell us where. Is there, 
then, a Galilean vilhxge that has a Martha and Mary, 
like the familiar one on the eastern slope of Olivet? 
We know of none, nor of any other Martha and 
Mary than the sisters of Lazarus. The scene of the 
parable of the Good Samaritan, mentioned just be- 
fore, lay on the road below Bethany. Luke some- 
times groups different events, when a spiritual unity 
binds them together. Did he feel that we might 
pervert that parable to the promotion of a self-right- 
eous zeal, that, immediately after, he points us to 
tliis sitting at the feet of Jesus ? 

It is humiliating to know that there is no truth, 
however divine, that may not be perverted to evil 
by an unholy heart. As the activity of a holy be- 
nevolence may degenerate into the restless bustle 
of self-righteousness, so even sitting at the feet of 
Jesus may become a selfish indulsrence when we 
ought to be at work for the Master. 

The evangelist does not mention Lazarus, because 
there is nothing that calls for any allusion to him. 
It is only the contrast in the conduct of the two 
sisters that he seeks to set before us. Martha seems 
to be the mistress of the house ; it therefore devolves 
on her to care for the comfort of our Saviour. 
Mary appears to be a younger sister, on whom re- 
sponsibility does not fall so directly. It may be 
inferred, however, that Mary was with her sister at 



144 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

the beginning of her labors, and aided her up to a 
certain point, when, as Martha says, " she left her to 
serve alone." She was justified in doing this, how- 
ever, by Eastern customs, because it is a great point 
in Oriental hospitality (as travellers from Western 
lands can tell you to their sorrow) uever to leave 
a guest alone. To this day, in the East, etiquette re- 
quires that one of the family remain with the guest 
while the rest are providing for his wants. 

So Mary sat at Jesus' feet. While thus ensraofed 
Martha comes, heated with much work and worried 
with many cares, saying, " Lord, dost thou not care 
that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her, 
therefore, that she help me ; " and Jesus answered 
her, " Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled 
about many things; but one thing is needful, and 
Mar}^ hath chosen that good part, which shall not 
be taken away from her." What are the lessons to 
be learned from the occurrence ? 

One lesson, which has become inseparably con- 
nected with this Scripture, is, the importance of 
choosing the one thing needful rather than all the 
activities of the world; in other words, the impor- 
tance of preferring Christ before all else. This 
lesson has become so associated with this passage 
that men can hardly think of one without the other, 
and rightly too. The world is toiling in a painful 
anxiety, while the trusting believer sits at the feet 



SERVING CHRIST. 145 

of Jesus, kept in perfect peace ; and Christ endorses 
the exhortations of preachers to choose this good 
part, and choose it now. It is worth choosing. 
The choice cannot be too speedy, or too determined, 
and none who make it ever repent the act. 

But, after all, is this not a mere surface lesson? It 
is a true one ; but are there not others, not so con- 
spicuous it may be, and yet springing from the "in- 
ward root and centre " of this occurrence ? 

To be satisfied of this, we need only remember 
that Martha was not a follower of the world in dis- 
tinction from a true disciple. If Mary was a Chris- 
tian, so was she. If Christ loved Mary, it is written 
that he " loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus ; " 
Martha being put first, lest any should misjudge 
her, and the name of Mary left out, lest any should 
unduly exalt her. True, it is written that, while 
Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, Martha was cumbered 
about much serving; but serving whom? Was it 
not this same Jesus at whose feet her sister sat ? 
And, if it be objected that she overdid the matter, 
remember who it was that found fault with Mary 
because the ointment was not sold for four hundred 
pence and given to the poor. The fact that it was 
Judas who grudged so much waste, as he called it, 
may well make us pause before condemning Martha 
for the same thing. And if any say, still she ought 

to have improved the opportunity to have been with 
13 



146 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

Jesus, the answer is, the same activit}^ that now 
led her to the much serving, on another occasion led 
her to run to meet Jesus as soon as she heard that 
he was coming ; while she who now sits at his feet, 
then sat still in the house. Plainly, then, we do 
great injustice to Martha, if we conclude that she 
had not chosen Christ for her Saviour. Moreover, 
w^hen Jesus said unto her, " I am the resurrection 
and the life ; he that believeth in me, though he were 
dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and 
believeth in me shall never die," he added, 
"Believest thou this?" And Martha answered, 
"Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the 
Son of God, Avho should come into the world." 

Are the sisters, then, to be equally commended 
in the scene before us ? As we see the one cum- 
bered about much serving, and the other sitting at 
the feet of Jesus, are we to conclude that the con- 
duct of one was just as acceptable as the other, and 
so infer that all Christians, however diverse their 
modes of service, are equally acceptable to God? 
That different modes of service may be equally ac- 
ceptable is doubtless true, for different persons are 
gifted with different capacities for work. This one 
is better adapted to go out into the highways and 
compel men to come in to the gospel feast ; and that 
one is better fitted to set it before them w4ien they 
enter. This one is made to honor Christ by the 



SERVIXG CHRIST, 147 

sweet influence of a holy example ; and that one is 
gifted with a fascination of address that leads captive 
the listener from the first; while this other one 
wields a facile pen, through which, more than in any- 
other way, he may work for Christ. Now, it is very 
true, that each one of these, in his or her sphere 
of action, may be equally acceptable to Christ, for 
our acceptance does not depend on the manner of 
service which God has fitted us to render, but on 
the spirit in which we render it. 

All this may be, and yet Martha and Mary not 
have been equally acceptable in the occurrence before 
us, not because one was a Christian and the other 
not, but because at that particular moment there was 
a difference in their feelings and motives, their spirit 
and their ends. 

^We cannot deny that two persons, both of them 
justified freely by God's grace, may nevertheless 
commend themselves to Christ in a very unequal 
manner. And so it was here. Martha was not less 
acceptable because she was engaged in necessary out- 
Ward service. Mary was not more acceptable be- 
cause she was busied about spiritual things. But 
Martha offended in the spirit which at that moment 
had possession of her heart, while her sister gave 
Christ a better reception, because her spirit was more 
after his own heart ; though both were alike accepted 
of him on the ground of his atonement. 



148 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

What, then, was the clifFerence between them? It 
was not merely that Martha was engaged in givhig to 
Christ, and Mary was receivmg from him ; for one 
may give to Christ in a right spirit. But in giving, 
the mind and heart of Martha were for. the moment 
drawn awaj^ from the grace of Christ to her own 
doings. There maybe an element of self-righteous- 
ness even in a believing heart ; something of the 
spirit of Jehu when he said, " Come with me, and 
see my zeal for the Lord." There may be a tem- 
porary losing sight of Christ, to dwell on what I 
do and feel, and then the step is very easy to what 
another does not do or feel ; so the door is thrown 
open to envy, or to hasty judgment, yea, to every 
wrong feeling. How easy is it, for example, to 
dwell on our privations, our painful labors, till we 
begin to feel that we are in labors more abundant, in 
self-denials above measure, and there comes a feeling 
of resentment against those Christians who live easier, 
suffer less, and do not offer to help us in our toil for 
their Master ! So poor Martha felt when the turbu- 
lence of her feelings, more than the pressure of her 
work, led her to address Christ so unworthily. She 
seems to reproach the calm Redeemer because he 
was not as restless as herself. " Carest thou not that 
I am so full of care ? " And then she even dictates to 
the Lord what he ought to do. Let us beware when 
our feelings lead us to become accusers of the 



SERVING CHRIST, 149 

brethren. When we dare, even in thought, to dic- 
tate to God how he shall deal with them, it is tnne 
that we were on our knees, crying for mercy. We 
may be regenerate ; but so was David, and Peter ,^ and 
this Martha. When we stand o^azino; on the mote in 
a brother's eye, it is time we were searching for the 
beam in our own. When we passionately demand 
sentence on another, we utter our own condemnation. 
How great Avas that commotion in the heart of 
Martha that led her to dare to tell the Son of man 
w^hat he should do, and what he should leave nndone ! 
yea, reproach the All-Seeing as though he did not 
see, and the All-Holy as though he needed an angry 
sinner to point out to him the path of judgment ! 

When we feel a desire that Christ should take 
sides with us against our fellow-disciple, we stand 
on dangerous ground. "Who art thou that judgest 
another man's servant ? To his own master he stand- 
eth or falleth." See how the sea of passion wrought 
and was tempestuous in that troubled heart. She, 
too, would like to sit with Mary at the feet of Jesus ; 
but, instead of bringing her much serving into subor- 
dination to this, she envies Mary ; she is jealous of her 
happiness ; she is angry because her sister fares better 
than herself. She boasteth to her guest that all the 
elaborate preparations for his comfort are the work 
of her own hands ; and yet she complains of it as a 
burden too heavy to bear alone. Just so inconsist- 

13* 



150 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

ent is sinful feeling with itself, while the sense of the 
inconsistency makes the soul yet more wretched 
than before. 

But see how gently Christ deals with this fretful 
complainer. He does not crush her with stern re- 
buke ; he does not hold up before her the hateful- 
ness which he plainly sees ; but, in an almost 
playful manner, he says, "Martha, Martha, thou 
art careful and troubled about many things." He 
repeats her name in that peculiar tone that a mother 
uses when her child does something which she would 
check without chiding ; . and then he shapes his 
words so that the poor burdened one shall feel that 
all her toil for his comfort is gratefully appreciated, 
while he gently reminds her that only one thing was 
needful in receiving such a guest, and that was the 
giving herself up unreservedly to receiving from 
him. For " the Son of man came not to be minis- 
tered unto, but to minister." When he asked water 
to drink at the well of Jacob, it was only that he 
might call attention to the living water which he 
would give ; and so, when he came to the house 
of Martha, it was not so much to be entertained as 
to feast his hosts" with the bread of heaven. Mary 
had chosen this good part, and, instead of saying to 
Martha, I will not bid her to help you ; I will not 
send her away from sitting at my feet; he says, 
''It shall not be taken from her." But what was 



SERVING CHRIST. 151 

the good part chosen by that younger sister? It 
was not a phice of ease, in distinction from one of 
labor. Christ pays no premium on sloth. He has no 
blessinsf for the selfishness that would avoid unplcas- 
ant toil under the pretence of securing a deeper 
work of grace in one's own soul. Had he, who 
knoweth what is in man, seen aught like that in 
Mary, he had never said, "She hath chosen the 
good part." But he came to give grace for grace, 
and she, in her deep sense of spiritual want, could 
not stay away from his fulness. She must hear his 
gracious words, that, through their divine eflicacy, 
Christ may be made unto her, sanctification. It was 
not ease she sought, but Christ. 

" More of thy presence, Lord, impart, 
More of thine image let me bear." 

Such is the spiritual hunger that leads her to the 
feet of Jesus. She does not stand before him to 
attract notice, but she sits down in the humblest 
place, where she can be most out of sight herself, 
while eye and heart are filled with him. Martha, 
indeed, is providing food for Christ ; but Mary is 
being fed by him. As says a German writer quoted 
by Stier, " We must not be always seeking God, 
we must also find him. As long as we are still 
seeking, there is much running and commotion ; he 
who has found him enjoj^s and works quietly." 



152 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

Perhaps Martlia, profiting by the words of Jesus 
so wisely spoken, joined her sister at his feet; and 
it may be that Mary also aided her sister in her 
household cares, still communing with Jesus 
through words which she had heard, and which his 
Spirit continued to unfold as she pondered them in 
her heart. But, however that may be, it is our 
part to combine the Martha and the Mary in our 
own experience ; not working around Christ merely, 
but communing with him, while we labor for him ; 
not offering a sacrifice of our own toil, but receiv- 
ing of his fulness, that we may render it back in 
holy service. Let every Martha, whom God calls 
to be busy about many things, keep Christ in her 
eye, and carry him in her heart. So shall she work 
without distraction, as saith the Christian poet : — 

'* With thee conversing, I forget 
All time and toil and care; 
Labor is rest, and pain is sweet, 
If thou, my God, art here." 

And so let every Mary spend the strength and life 
she renews at Jesus' feet, in labor for his glory. 
Paul wrought more abundantly than all the apostles ; 
but he could not have done so had he not sat so 
much at Jesus' feet, or, to use his own expression, 
which means the same thing, liv^ed the life which he 
lived tn the flesh, by the faith of him who loved 
him and gave himself for him. The beloved dis- 



SERVING CHRIST. 153 

ciple lay on the bosom of his Master ; and whose 
words come home to our hearts with greater sweet- 
ness or sanctifying power? In Martha, Christ did 
not blame work, but an unquiet spirit of working. 
It was not irreligious, but it had too little of the 
peace which Jesus gives. It was not Christless, but 
it might have had more of Christ. Tlie service 
of Christ is perfect freedom only while our hearts 
sweetly rest in him. The moment self-righteous- 
ness usurps the place of his free grace, confusion 
and every evil work begin. 

The spirit which this Scripture would have us 
cultivate is beautifully expressed, by one who seems 
herself to be at home in the position of Mary, in 
the following lines : — 

" I ask Thee for the daily strength, 

To none that ask denied; 
A mind to blend with outward life, ^ 

yVTiile keeping at thy side^ 
Content to fill a little space, 

If thou art glorified, 

*' And if some things I do not ask 
Among my blessings be, 
I'd have my spirit filled the more 

With grateful love to thee; 
More careful — not to serve thee much, 
But please thee perfectly.'' 

Another kindred spirit said, not long before she 
died, " If I had my life to live over again, I should 



154 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

not be so anxious to see the result of particular acts 
of service, but rather give myself to God as a 
channel through which he may pour his saving 
grace, according to his own good pleasure." 

Oh for a deep and abidmg faith in the truth that 
the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, 
but to minister ! Not that he rejects our service ; 
he is too kind for that ; but he would have us, 
first of all, be filled with himself, that so the over- 
flow of our activity might be Christ; and still, as 
that received from him flows over in holy activity, 
he would have us continue looking unto him, that 
so the fountain of our activity may be perennial. 

How beautiful the Son of God appears drawing 
Mary to his feet, by his grace within her, and then 
keeping her there by the outflow of grace from 
him, like a spring whose waters fail not ! Does the 
picture seem lovely ? That same Jesus wants us to 
sit down with Mary, keep that place through all 
the activities of Martha, and never leave it, till we 
exchange this most blessed of all earthly seats for 
his immediate presence. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

IMITATING CHRIST IN DOING GOOD. 
Cy^!5jTHE Apostle John says, "He that saith he 



m 



abideth in him, ought himself also so to 
walk even as he walked." 

These words need no explanation. They are 
easily understood. They also commend themselves 
to the conscience. We cannot help approving them. 
A profession of union to Christ ought to be sus- 
tained by a life corresponding to his. The example 
of Christ ought to be our pattern in everything. It 
should be the standard to which we constantly strive 
to conform. No matter what duty v/e are called to 
perform, or what trial to endure, in Christ we may 
find the precise pattern of excellence which we are 
to copy. But, viewed in this broad light, the subject 
is too vast for a single lesson. Let us, then, select a 
single department of duty, and study Christ as our 
pattern in living for the salvation of men. 

In thinking of this subject, we are struck with 
the preparation there was in the heart of Christ for 
such labor. Many seek to do the work while un- 

155 



156 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

qualified ; but Christ was qualified for it by his love 
for men. This Vith him was not a superficial excel- 
lence veneered on the outside of a mass of selfish- 
ness ; but it was love through and through. It was 
not something put on those parts most exposed to 
view ; but, search where we will, from every nook 
and corner there looks out on us the same holy 
love. It was not an occasional walking contrary to 
inclination ; but it was a constant walking in accord- 
ance with inclination. In public and in private the 
current flowed in the same direction. Whether sun, 
or moon, or stars looked down on it, they detected 
no eddies of selfishness, no counter-current. In this 
respect the love of Christ to men is infinitely wor- 
thy of our imitation. 

And this love of Christ was to men as sinners. 
His was not love to man as amiable, attracting love 
to himself, and rewarding as well as attracting; it 
was love to men who deserved the condemnation that 
rested on them, by one who knew how perfectly 
they deserved it. Men have entered the ministry, 
allured by the respect and love that seem to centre 
around the office, but have left it when they found 
how much of thankless toil it involved. How often 
the minister's sorest trials come from those who re- 
ceive the largest blessings from his labors ! Even 
missionaries, who went forth with romantic ideas of 
the missionary work, have left it in disgust when 



IMITATIXG CHRIST IN DOING GOOD. 157 

brought face to face, not merely with privation and 
suffering, — for that they expected, — but imposi- 
tion and unkindness from those for whose sake 
they had welcomed both suffering and privation ! 
Jesus Christ, when he uttered that wonderful word, 
" God so loved the world as to give his only-begot- 
ten Son," said, at the same time, that when light 
was thus come into the world, men loved darkness 
rather than light, and would not come unto the 
light, lest their deeds should be reproved. He 
loved, though he knew that he would not be loved. 
He loved sinners, knowing that they would betray 
and crucify him; and, even when they mocked his 
dying agony, still he loved them. Then, after his 
resurrection, when he sent his disciples to preach 
the gospel, he charged them to begin at Jerusalem; 
in the place where wicked hands slew him, there 
first of ^ all to offer pardon to those guilty of that 
crime^i^and this forgiving love, which we delight 
in as th^ source of our salvation, is also our pattern 
in love to sinners. Let us not enjoy it in the one 
aspect and reject it in the other, for only as we have 
this spirit of Christ are we prepared to be co- 
workers with him in saving souls. Is there no labor 
for souls that fails of success because of deficiency 
here? 

AYe are accustomed to speak of the love of Christ 
to sinners as self-denying, and point to his leaving 
14 



158 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

the throne of his glory and taking upon him the 
form of a servant as the greatest possible self-denial ; 
but what finite mind can take the measure of that 
infinite descent? Do we not appreciate it better 
when we bear in mind that this self-denial was for 
just such sinners as nailed him to the cross ? We 
can understand the self-denial of leaving the throne 
to die for such, though we cannot accurately esti- 
mate the distance of the descent involved in the 
Word becoming flesh. But here, too, while we en- 
joy the sight of such self-denial endured for us, let 
us not forget that this, also, is a pattern for our imi- 
tation. "Let this mind be in you which was also 
in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, 
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, yet 
made himself of no reputation, and took upon him 
the form of a servant." No created being can ever 
equal such renunciation of self. Yet we are to have 
the same mind in us, and it will do us no harm to 
inquire what manifestations we have given of such 
a mind ; and when tempted to shrink from the self- 
denial necessary to labor for the salvation of men, 
let us look up to the infinite self-denial of our Lord, 
and be ashamed of self-indulgence. 

Christ not only denied himself, he also sufiered 
for sinners. We are apt to confound self-denial and 
suffering, because the denial of self is so difficult to 
us that it involves more or less of suffering ; but 



IMITATING CHRIST JiV DOING GOOD. 159 

with Christ they were separate and distinct. He so 
loved sinners as to be made in the likeness of sinful 
flesh ; but this was in order that he might be able to 
sufier and to die. And this becoming obedient unto 
death, even the death of the cross, was not only a 
necessary means of procuring our salvation, but also 
a part of the example which Christ left for us to fol- 
low. As saith one apostle, ^^ Christ also suffered 
for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow 
his steps ; " and another, " He laid down his life for 
us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the 
brethren." 

Perhaps it will be said that we are not now con- 
sidering love to the brethren, but labor for those 
who are out of Christ. Yet it is labor to bring 
them to Christ. We hope that it will be blest to 
the salvation of some ; and if so, do not such become 
brethren, and can we ever do so much for a child of 
God as to be the means of his becoming such ? and 
is not this the meaning of the apostle when he 
says, ^^I endure all things for the elect's sake, that 
they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ 
Jesus with eternal glory " ? His sufferings were not 
for Christians already converted, but for those who, 
through his toil and suffering, became his brethren 
in the Lord ; and so Christ encouraged him to re- 
main in Corinth, saying, "for I have much people 



160 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

in this city ;" that is, heathen who shall become my 
people. 

While there is so much that is trying to nature, in 
faithful, earnest dealing with the impenitent, let us 
not rob ourselves of the divine power there is in the 
example of Christ to sustain us. We need it all ; 
and only as we continue looking unto Jesus as our 
example in suffering for the sake of doing good, can 
we overcome the power of suffering to discourage. 

There is one view of the love of Christ overcoming 
the suffering involved in doing good, which demands 
particular attention. Some men, desirous of saving 
souls, when they find that certain truths which God 
requires them to set forth, always give offence, are 
disposed to say nothing about them ; not that they 
cease laboring to save men, but they try to find 
some other mode of laboring that may give less of- 
fence. How was it with Christ? He knew that, if 
he taught certain truths, he must endure the contra- 
diction of sinners ; and yet, knowing that these were 
precisely the truths they needed to hear, his love 
made him willing to encounter their hostility for 
the sake of doing them good. He foresaw all that 
would follow his teaching, in Nazareth, that God 
hath mercy on whom he will have mercy. Did he 
then select a less offensive doctrine? Nay, verily ! 
but, knowing that this was precisely the truth their 
state of mind required, he was willing to meet the 



IMITATING CHRIST IN DOING GOOD. 161 

raofe that sou2:ht to cast him headlons^ from the brow 
of the hill, for the sake of saving them. And who 
knows but in heaven we shall meet some of that 
ras^ino: mob, brou2:ht there throus^h the love that 
was strong enough to meet their wants even at the 
peril of life? It is not impossible that some, subse- 
quently converted under apostolic preaching, dated 
their first impressions from that most unpopular 
sermon of the Teacher from heaven. 

We know that afterwards, when Peter would 
have stopped Christ from speaking of his sufferings 
and death, the Saviour turned and said unto him, 
'' Get thee behind me, Satan ; thou art an offence 
unto me, for thou relishest not the things that be 
of God." 

Christ's love to sinners did not need to keep antic- 
ipated suffering out of sight in order to sustain its 
composure ; but it found pleasure in thinking of 
those sufferings through which it would save us. In 
this also Christ left us an example, that we should 
follow his steps. Let no one excuse his self-indul- 
gence, by pronouncing the imitation of such love an 
impossibility. It is not so ; for here is one who 
counts all things but loss, that he "may know the 
fellowship of the sufferings of Christ, being made 
conformable unto his death ; " one whose " earnest 
expectation and hope was that. Christ should be 
magnified in his body, whether by life or by death ;" 



162 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

and just in proportion as we resemble Paul in this 
imitation of Christ do we rejoice in the Lord. 

Look on this conformity to Christ from a distance, 
and it seems unendurable ; draw near to it, and it 
is the joy of the Lord. From the stand-point of the 
world, it is a living martyrdom; to the spiritual 
mind, it is the most joyous fellowship with Christ. 

This labor for the salvation of sinners, originating 
in love, and glorying in the tribulation involved, with 
Christ was ever the chief end of life. It was not a 
subordinate end, filling up the blank spaces left by 
something else. Christ was like other men, in that 
he lived for his own enjoyment. He was unlike 
them, in that his joy was to glorify God in saving 
sinners, even at the cost of his own life. Christ 
bad to provide, not only for himself, but for a family 
of twelve ; yet so engrossed was he in the great 
work of saving souls, that no mention is made of 
his working for a support, though it is morally 
certain that at some period of his life he must have 
done so. There is as little record of his soliciting 
aid from others, and none at all of his working 
miracles either for the support of himself or his 
disciples. But always, from that noted saying of 
his, at twelve years of age, "Wist ye not that I 
must be about my Father's business ? " his mind and 
heart are full of the one object. Whether actively 
engaged in his public ministry, or only preparing 



IMITATING CHRIST IN DOING GOOD, 163 

for it, it was his meat and drink to do the will of 
him that sent him, and it was the will of him that 
sent him, that every one who seeth the Son and be- 
lie veth on him may have everlasting life. 

Nothing was ever counted an interruption or a 
task that promised to promote this end. When 
weary from a walk, under the burning sun of a 
Syrian noon, he was ready to preach to the woman 
of Samaria while he rested. It was while laboring 
to pour light into her dark heart, that he told the 
wondering disciples, "I have meat to eat that ye 
know not of, even to do the will of him that sent me, 
and to finish his work." And on another occasion, 
though he had not time so much as to eat, still he 
did not w^eary of his work of love. In all this he is 
a pattern for each of us ; not that our strength is 
equal to his any more than our knowledge of God, 
or our ability to make known the things of God ; 
but the disposition to seek first the kingdom of 
God should be in us, as it was in him. The inter- 
ests of that kingdom should ever be preferred before 
our own. 

Christ always orders his providences so that we 
may know whether we do so prefer them. Stormy 
Sabbaths try whether we put the same value on the 
place of prayer as on the place of -business. Diffi- 
dence in ourselves, and unkind criticism from others, 
test our desire to serve him in the social meeting. 



164 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

The cavils, and it may be the angry remarks of the 
impenitent, measure the strength of our desire to 
witness for Christ, and to do them good. 

There is a strong indisposition in many to speak 
a word for Christ to the members of their own 
families. But his faithfulness even on the brow of 
the hill at Nazareth, joined with the fact that neither 
did his brethren believe on him, teach us that though 
Christ was no stranger to the embarrassment of such 
labors, yet here also he was without sin, so leaving 
us an example that we should follow his steps. 

Perhaps there is no way in which we can do more 
for the salvation of sinners, than by praying for 
them the effectual and fervent prayer that availeth . 
much. It is an interesting inquiry, what is the ex- 
ample Christ has left us on this point. The evan- 
gelists do not tell us the subject-matter of his 
prayers, save in a very few cases, but we know 
that he was in the habit of praying for his disciples, 
from the incidental mention of his prayer for Peter in 
his foreseen temptation. If he prayed for one who 
so denied him, even after being forewarned of his 
danger, we may be sure he prayed much and often 
for them all. We know how he prayed for them 
and prays for us : " Sanctify them through thy truth f 
and can we think that he prayed so for them after 
conversion, and offered no petition for their conver- 
sion? Not such is the teaching of that Scripture, 



IMITATING CnmST IN DOING GOOD. 165 

^^ Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for 
thine inheritance, and the uttermost part of the 
earth for thy possession." That tells us that who- 
soever believeth in Jesus, does so in answer to his 
prayers. That prayer of Christ on the cross, "Father, 
forgive them, they know not what they do," was 
not offered for sinners already penitent. The Spirit 
was poured out on the day of Pentecost by Him who 
ever maketh intercession for us, as was testified by 
the apostle: "Therefore, being by the right hand 
of God exalted, and having received of the Father 
the gift of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this 
which ye now see and hear." Then, in prayer for 
others, let us be strengthened not only by the 
example of Christ when on earth, but by his co- 
operation now. We never offer effectual prayer on 
earth, only as Christ intercedes for the same object 
in heaven. 

Union with Christ involves more than we think 
it does ; much more than the lives of many profes- 
sors give the world an impression that it does. "He 
that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so 
to walk even as he walked." The object of Christ is 
to assimilate us to himself. Just as he shall deliver 
our bodies from corruption, by fashioning them like 
unto his own glorious body, so does he deliver our 
souls from selfishness and sin, by conforming us to 
his own character, and that character is love. We 



166 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

have seen something of the nature of this love. 
How far are we advanced in this likeness of Christ ? 
How much of his image do men recognize in us ? 
More important still, there is One who to-day walk- 
eth in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, 
as he did in the days of his beloved disciple. The 
increased number of his churches, or of the mem- 
bers they contain, does not diminish the thorough- 
ness of his knowledge, or the constancy of his 
observation of the life of each. How much of his 
own love does he see reflected from our hearts ? 

Not regular attendance on ordinances, not out- 
ward respectability of life, not an unchallenged 
church membership, but a walking even as Christ 
walked, will bear the scrutiny of that day. ^^ If we 
be dead with him, we shall also live with him ; if 
we suffer, we shall also reign with him." 




CHAPTER XIV. 

WE WOULD SEE JESUS. 

OME Greeks, not necessarily proselytes, 
but roore probably heathen, were present 
at the Passover in Jerusalem just before the 
crucifixion, for in that age heathen visited distant 
cities to worship in the most celebrated temples. 
Dissatisfied with a false religion, many were diligent 
in their inquiries after the true faith, and used to 
frequent the synagogues for instruction, though they 
did not submit to circumcision. These Greeks had 
not come up to keep the feast, but only to worship 
at it, as Gentiles did, in the outer court of the tem- 
ple. 

It is an interesting fact, that just as wise men from 
the East came to the manger in Bethlehem, so these 
from the West came to the cross in Jerusalem, and, 
as we hope, not in vain ; for Solomon, when he dedi- 
cated the temple, made mention of" the stranger who 
did not belong to Israel," and prayed — to use his 
own words — for " those who should come out of a 
far country for thy name's sake." Were not these 

167 



168 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

Greeks some of those whom the Spirit had in view 
when he indited that prayer of Solomon? It w^as 
a peculiarly interesting moment when they visited 
Jerusalem. Lazarus had just been raised from the 
dead, and perhaps the popular excitement growing 
out of that event first turned their attention to the 
Saviour ; for many of the Jews who had seen that 
miracle believed on him, and tlie Pharisees were 
nerving themselves to the murder of Jesus, by rea- 
soning like this: "Perceive ye how jq prevail 
nothing ? Behold, the world is gone after him : " in 
other words, gentler measures avail nothing; do 
something more decisive. 

These Greek pilgrims in Jerusalem could not fail to 
hear much of him whose deeds and claims were the 
theme of all tongues ; and one of his deeds must have 
interested them very deeply. Forbidden to enter 
the temple itself, the outermost court was assigned 
to them, as Gentiles ; but even this right the Jews 
trampled on, by bringing in there sheep and oxen, 
and the rough noises of those who bought and sold 
them. The wonder is, that any Gentiles continued 
to come to the temple, when compelled to worship 
amid such unseemly sights and sounds. This wrong 
Jesus rectified, and rescued their place of prayer from 
such desecration. Perhaps they were present when 
he did it ; for, if not done, as some think, that day, it 
took place only three days before, and it must have 



WE WOULD SEE JESUS. 169 

seemed to them a very kind, as well as righteous, 
interference in their behalf. 

Then, too, the public entry of Christ into the holy 
city that morning, garments and palm branches 
strewing the street before him, while hosannas 
rent the air, may have determined them to see at 
once him whom till then they had only intended to 
see at some indefinite future. 

Christ was at this time, most probably, in the 
inner courts of the temple, and they could not ap- 
proach him. So they wait patiently in that outer 
court, so latelylhe scene of his gracious interference. 
Little did they know how soon, or at what cost, he 
was about to open a way for us Gentiles into the 
Holy of Holies, where even Jews could not enter, 
no, nor yet priests, but only the high priest, and 
even he but once a year. Had they known this, 
how much stronger had been those favorable feelings 
they now cherish toward Jesus ! 

But the Saviour approaches, surrounded by his 
disciples, and, singling out Philip, they apply to him 
to bring about the coveted audience with his Mas- 
ter. Perhaps they select him because they hear him 
addressed by a Greek name. Perhaps they hear 
him speak to a bystander in their native tongue. It 
may be they had even been his guests at Bethsaida ; 
or perhaps he was the only one within reach, who 

seemed especially intimate with Christ, and so to 
15 



170 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

him they open their errand. "Sir, we would see 
Jesus ; " that is, we would have a personal interview 
with him in private. 

One wonders thej^ did not apply to John ; but he 
might have been so close to Christ that they could 
not speak to him without being overheard by his 
Master; and we know, from John's account of these 
scenes, that at the tune both his eye and ear must 
have been devoted to the Lord. Philip, too, may 
have had that peculiarly genial expression of coun- 
tenance which would draw a stranger to speak to him 
rather than to a score of others equally within reach. 
That spirit that led him, as soon as he began to fol- 
low Christ himself, to go and find Nathanael, and 
then answer his objections so judiciously, may have 
still marked him out as the most fitting medium of 
introduction to his Lord. But this was a novel case : 
Nathanael was an Israelite, these were Gentiles, 
and Christ had said he was not sent but to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel. When Nathanael came, 
Christ was at leisure ; now he was in the midst of a 
crowd, and the disciples were in momentary expecta- 
tion of his publicly assuming the throne of the Mes- 
siah ; so, not daring to act on his own responsibility, 
he makes a sign to Andrew, and, taking him aside, 
consults what to do. The result is, the two go and 
tell Jesus. 

Perhaps, by this time, they had got away from the 



WE WOULD SEE JESUS. l7l 

pressure at the temple gates, and the Greeks keep- 
ing within reach, though modestly holding back till 
called to come forward, Jesus turns him about, and 
speaks so as to be heard both by his disciples and 
the strangers who had sent them. Some have ob- 
jected to this, that he spoke in the language of the 
Jews, which was unintelligible to the Greeks ; but 
no one familiar with the East finds any difficulty 
here : for there is hardly an oriental who does not 
speak two or more languages, and we know that our 
Saviour conversed alone with Pilate, in the palace. 
Jesus speaks, then, at once, to the Greeks and his 
disciples, saying, "The hour is come that the Sou of 
man should be glorified.'' As if he had said, Ye 
have come opportunely, for the time when the 
world shall see me, and the glory of God in me, is 
already come ; for in his death, — now regarded by 
Christ as having come, — is the Son of man glorified. 
From this darkness of shame his glory beams forth ; 
from the cross proceeds power to draw all men unto 
himself, and at the same time power to wrench the 
world from the grasp of Satan. On the mount of 
glory he spoke of his decease, and now, from the 
beginning of that, he speaks of his glorification. 

See, too, how kindly he adapts himself to his 
heathen auditors. They had not read the prophets, 
who spoke of a suffering Messiah, and so he does 
not refer them to the prophets. But, as he knows 



172 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

they had learned from the Jews to look for a trium- 
phant Messiah, he seeks so to prepare their minds 
for the disappointment of that hope, that they shall not 
be offended. It is as if he had said, the Son of man 
shall indeed be glorified, but not as you anticipate. 
But how can he break the matter to those idolaters ? 
He knows they are deeply read in nature, and can 
understand her language ; therefore he says, with 
his accustomed solemnity, " Verily, verily, I say 
imtoyoUj except a corn of wheat fall into the ground 
and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth 
forth much fruit." Such will be the case with me. 
Should I fulfil your hopes, and appear at once in 
pomp and power, I should abide alone ; the great 
object of my coming to earth would remain unful- 
filled. But if ye shall soon hear of my being cruci- 
fied, remember that I told you beforehand, that the 
corn of wheat which falls into the ground and dies, 
bringeth forth much fruit ; therefore do not stum- 
ble at my death, however it disappoints your 
mistaken hopes. And then, as regards yourselves, 
if, instead of the honors you expect, you are hated 
of all men, for my sake, neither let this offend you i 
for " he that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that 
hateth his life in this w^orld shall keep it unto life 
eternal." If any man wdll serve me, let him follow 
me, through suffering, to glory, and "where I am, 
there shall also mv servant be," whether as now on 



WE WOULD SEE JESUS. 173 

my way to heaven, through suffering, or hereafter 
with me in the enjojnnent of its glory ; for as sure as 
the hour is come that I should be glorified, so surely 
"if any man serve me, him will mj^ Father honor." 

If the Lord Jesus, instead of being then on his 
way to the cross, had possessed a home of his own, 
where he could have invited those Greeks and dis- 
coursed to them at length, could he have imparted 
instruction more appropriate, or in a manner better 
adapted to their modes of thought? Doubtless 
they could not at the time fathom all its meaning ; 
but would they ever forget the few mighty words 
they heard from that heavenly Teacher, as for a 
moment they met and parted again at the gate of 
the temple ? And as on Friday the corn of w^heat 
was buried in Joseph's garden, was not new light 
shed on its bringing forth much fruit ? And as his 
disciples also passed through much tribulation into 
the glory whither Christ had gone, did not these 
heathen niquirers go with them, rejoicing in a greater 
favor than the purification of that outer court, even 
admittance into his Father's house above? 

Where they lived, or how, or where they died. 
Scripture does not inform us. But, if we are 
Christ's, shall we not meet them in that day when 
be makes up his jewels ? And shall we not have a 
common experience in the matter of personal inter- 
course with a visible Saviour here on earth ? They 
15* 



174 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

longed for it, and so have we. They on one occasion 
almost had their wish, and anticipated much from 
the interview" ; but he did not bless them in the way 
they expected. He only uttered a few pregnant 
words, which his Spirit afterwards unfolded, and 
passed on. And shall not we, also., have many 
thinsfs to tell in which the Lord did not bless us in 
the way we expected, but overturned our foolish 
plans to make way for his infinitely wiser and every 
way better methods of sanctification ? 

Tlieir desire to see Jesus is not theirs only, but 
the desire of all that have ever known the Saviour 
before or since, as he himself tells his disciples : 
" Many prophets and kings have desired to see those 
things which ye see, and have not seen them." 
"Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it 
and was glad." We do not hope to see Jesus in the 
flesh ; but if our souls have one desire stronger than 
all others, it is that we may see him as he manifests 
himself unto the eve of faith. 

The multitude who sang hosannas that day said, 
This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth in Galilee. 
We, too, would see Jesus as a prophet, "revealing 
to us, by his word and Spirit, the will of God for our 
salvation." When burdeijed with guilt, we know 
that nothing but the knowledge of Christ can meet 
our case. No other name but his can dispel our 
fears. And when we have long prayed and looked 



WE WOULD SEE JESUS. .175 

for this manifestation of himself, but instead of 
it come only darker views of the evil that is in 
us, ^ve would see that Prophet, if only to ask 
whether we are in the right way ; for if this be his 
method of healing us, — if he see that it is better for 
us to be in heaviness through manifold temptations, — 
we will submit : even in our tears we will say, " not 
as I will, but as thou wilt." Only we would be sure 
that we are in the King's highway, and not in some 
by-path of our own. 

We do not deserve God's sunshine on the way 
home to our Father's house ; but if we know that we 
are in that way, it seems as though we could run 
and not be weary, walk and not faint, however dark 
it be ; for in the matter of sanctification we have a 
feeling that there are expositions of that corn of 
wheat falling into the ground and djang, in order to 
bring forth fruit, which only Jesus is able to ex- 
plain. 

There was written on his cross, " This is Jesus, 
the King of the Jews," and we would see Jesus 
reigning supremely in our hearts, every feeling, im- 
pulse, and desire brought into captivity to his obe- 
dience. We cannot conceive of a more lovely vision. 
We could bear the loss of rapture, and look on with- 
out murmuring at the peace of others, while we 
ourselves are in deep waters, if we could only see 
Christ subduing us to his most blessed will, and his 



176 . GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

hand holding up our goings in his paths that our foot- 
steps slip not. 

There is one other sight of Christ as King we 
would also see ; we cannct tell which is the more 
lovely, only we are sure that we would not like 
the one without the other. It is the sight of our 
King subduing others also to his gentle sway. We 
would not see him reigning in our hearts alone, nor 
would we see him enthroned in other hearts, while 
ours were left rebellious ; but if we could only see 
Christ king in both, then were we blest indeed ; 
nor would we cry enough, till he shall reign King 
of kings and Lord of lords. 

Scripture speaks of Jesus as our great High Priest, 
who is passed into the heavens ; and we would look 
up to him who, having finished the work of redemp- 
tion, has gone there to apply it. We would not be 
impatient to follow after. Fixing our eye on that 
blood which cleanseth us from all sin, we would en- 
dure hardness as good soldiers just as long as he sees 
best ; but oh that, when the enemy presses sorest, 
and even faith seems giving way, we could look up 
and see Jesus pleading for us before the throne ! 
We would not insist on seeing our name engraven 
on his breast, or hearing it repeated by his lips ; 
but oh for the sight of that Intercessor, able to 
save to the uttermost, because he ever liveth to in- 
tercede ; for even when sinking it would renew our 



WE WOULD SEE JESUS. 177 

streugth, and we should rejoice in hope of the glory 
of God. 

The apostle speaks of him also as the Forerunner, 
who has entered within the vail. We would see 
him, also, as in this capacity he has gone forward to 
take possession for us ; and then it seems as though 
we could wait even fourscore years for the call to 
follow. 

But, among all these other names of Jesus, there 
is none more precious than this one given him of the 
angel before the incarnation, and under which he 
was spoken of by those heathen pilgrims. Happy 
men, if they understood that he was called Jesus 
because he saves his people from their sins. We 
are sinners, but we long for that deliverance. 
We are not yet delivered, nor can we save our- 
selves, and therefore, morning, noon, and night we 
would see Jesus ; as transgressors, we would hear 
him say, ^' Thy sins are forgiven thee ; " as depraved 
with a desperate depravity, we would fain see 
him washing us from our sins in his own blood, 
though the wish startles us by the magnitude of the 
grace which it desires. 

Let those who feel that they are deserving of 
salvation stand aloof from the Saviour, or seek to 
justify their neglect of his grace. We cannot do 
the first, and we would not undertake the last, and 
so still the lano;uao;e of our hearts is, we would see 



178 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

Jesus ; and ever as we go deeper in the knowledge 
of ourselves that desire is the more earnest. Even 
in a revival, when men might look for the Christian 
to give himself wholly up to gladness, his heart 
pants after the sight of Jesus ; for the very energy 
of grace seems to rouse a corresponding energy of 
corruption in his evil nature, and he lives only as his 
ej^e rests on Jesus and his power to save. 

At such a time the babe in Christ may so abound 
in his new-found joy that he can think of nothing 
else ; and does not this correspond with the care of 
God for children ? He provides for them a sheltered 
nook called home, a cradle, and a mother's arms ; 
but for the man, there is toil, and trouble, and the 
constant surging of life's battle, where he needs 
something; to nerve his faintino: heart and renew his 
failing strength in the conflict with sin. This 
cordial is found only in the sight of Jesus. 

One additional view of Jesus is indispensable to 
the Christian. It may have seemed to some that 
the mention of him as a Saviour from sin includes 
all that heart can wish. But there are moments in 
the Christian warfare when that alone cannot bear 
up the soul, and when, if we could not lean on 
a stronger support, we must sink. And what can 
that be? Let him, whose name is Legion, answer, 
as he cries out, " Jesus, Son of God Most High?* 



WE WOULD SEE JESUS, 179 

There are lessons about Christ to be learned even 
from devils. Those fallen spirits who have suffered 
much longer than our globe has existed know the 
strong points in the person of our Immanuel, and 
what is strong to their dismay is just as mighty to 
our comfort. 

As yet we know not the necessities of eter- 
nity, — what views of Christ will be best fitted 
to meet the wants of the glorified spirit ; but we 
can conjecture what they will be ; for there are times, 
even now, when the soul feels itself so helpless in 
the power of mighty sins, such a grip and grasp 
of wicked principalities, infernal powers, that if we 
could not look up to a divine Saviour, and be 
assured that it was God himself in the person of 
Christ that had undertaken to save, we would de- 
spair at once and forever. With what untold in- 
tensity does the soul at such times agonize for a 
sight of Jesus as the Son of God Most High ! 
Jesus the prophet, the priest, the Saviour, — we love 
them all ; but nothing satisfies until we see Jesus 
the Son of the Most High God. That atonement 
on the cross, unless it be the work of God, affords 
no comfort. That intercession before the throne — 
unless it be the prayer of one who can stand up 
before the Father on equal terms, and in perfect 
harmony of heart say, " Father, I will," and "what 
I will, thou wiliest also" — is equally barren of com- 



180 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

fort. But when the believer sees Jesus in the begin- 
ning with God, — yea, God himself, possessed of 
glory with the Father before the world was, — then 
all is peace. He can look in on the evil of his own 
heart, and say, ^^Thou shalt be rooted up and cast 
forth, for strong is the Lord who has undertaken it, 
and faithful is He w^io hath promised." He can 
look out on temptation without fear, and even to 
infernal workers of temptation can say, "He who 
cast you out of heaven, and hath reserved you in 
everlasting chains under darkness unto the judg- 
ment of the great day, hath come down from heaven 
to destroy your w^orks, and deliver me ; and what 
He purposes. He does." Thus may we see Jesus as 
our Immanuel, God with us, for us, in us, and so 
preparing us to be with him forever. 



Heaven is the home of bliss, 
Rather, the home of homes where Jesus is, 
Himself its light and life, its love and bliss, 
Its very perfectness. 

If, for that home made meet, 
I might far off, beyond the lowest seat. 
But gaze enraptured on his blessed feet. 
My heaven would be complete. 




CHAPTER XV. 

THE SAVING GRACE OF CHRIST. 

HEN burdened with sin, and weary with 
conflict, the Christian longs to turn 
away from all thought of his own doing, 
and gather strength for new labors from a view of 
Christ. After long riding on the dusty highway, 
oppressed by the heat of summer, we may have 
turned the horse's head into a cool avenue, shaded 
by leafy trees, and then driven slowly round a 
grassy lawn, inhaling the cool breeze, and refreshed 
by the sight of vale and hill, and verdant woods 
that opened up before us. At such a time, eye and 
heart found rest ; we had nothing to do but to sit 
still and drink in enjoyment through every sense. 
So, after long bearing the burden and heat of the 
day, we would fain turn aside from toil, and have 
our strength renewed by a sight of the grace that 
is in Jesus Christ. 

There is one Scripture that then seems written on 
purpose for our refreshment. After Cornelius had 
been led to Christ by the apostle of the circum- 

16 181 



182 * GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

cision, some of the Jewish converts felt that though 
Gentiles might come into the church, yet they must 
needs be circumcised, and observe the law of Moses. 
Others took a more Christian view of the matter ; 
and in this way commenced a wide-spread division 
in the church that had scarcely yet begun to assume 
a fixed form, or have definite regulations. The 
apostles and elders came together to consider the 
point, and, in the course of their conference, Peter 
told how God had given the Holy Ghost to Gentiles, 
as well as unto Jews, and had put no difference 
between them, purifying both by the same faith, 
and, at the close of his remarks, says, "We believe 
that, through the grace of our Lorc\ Jesus Christ, we 
shall be saved €ven as they." 

We do not listen to these words as the expression 
of mere private opinion. That company of apos- 
tles receive them as uttered by the iuspiration of 
God, and make them the basis of a "result of 
council " which " seemed good to the Holy Ghost ; " 
but apart from all thought of their diviue authority, 
the truth which they embody is refreshing. We 
lose sight of speaker and venerable council, in our 
enjoyment of the statement itself. It is eminently 
suggestive, and all its suggestions conduce to spir- 
itual joy. 

We should have expected the ardent speaker to 
say "Our Lord." That would sound more like 



THE SAVING GRACE OF CHRIS T. ^183 

him who said, ''Lord, I am ready to go with thee 
to prison and to death." "The Lord" seems too 
phlegmatic an expression for the eager spirit that 
pkmged into the sea to go to Jesus on the shore, 
and again leaped into the waves to meet his Master 
walking on the waters. Why, then, did he use it? 
Not because it was more passionless, or savored 
more of calm philosophy. Was it not that he had 
come to look on Christ as so exalted, and having 
such a multitude of disciples from every tribe and 
kindred under heaven, that he lost sight of his own 
relation to Christ, in the enjoyment of theirs. His 
Master seemed more glorious as the Saviour of so 
many. It was just such holy benevolence that 
prompted him to write afterwards, "Grace and 
peace be multiplied unto them that have obtained 
like precious faith with us." We are apt to regard 
the faith of apostles as not only stronger than ours, 
but radically different. He tells us that ours is of 
equal value ; was it not equally precious to his own 
heart as that through which himself was saved ? His 
beloved brother, Paul, also writing to all that "call 
on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord," hastes to 
add "both theirs and ours." Beautiful illustrations 
of the love which binds in one all who believe in 
Jesus ! 

But here is something more than unity ; this 
apostle, whom some would exalt above the rest, 



184 * GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

speaks as though he was following on after Gentiles 
into the kino^clom. We believe that we shall be 
saved "even as they," as though they were the 
leaders entering first, and he their humble follower 
treading the same path of salvation over which they 
had passed before him. He speaks as if they had 
already obtained, and he was hoping to be so happy 
as to obtain upon the same terms. 

This is a glorious vindication of the value of sal- 
vation ; for some think that though we do not 
deserve to be saved, yet the exalted piety, the 
peculiar labors, and the great sufferings endured by 
apostles for Christ's sake, gave them a sort of right 
to heaven; but here Peter says, "After all our toil 
and suffering, our fellowship with God in prayer 
and in the advancement of his kingdom, we are no 
nearer deserving than others, but are totally depend- 
ent on the grace of Christ." Let us here learn 
more worthy views of the worth of salvation. The 
difference between apostles and private Christians 
to-day, whether in official position or in anything 
else, aside from this grace, is an infinitesimal quan- 
tity compared with the infinite grace that stoops to 
save any sinner at all. 

Sometimes we find unconverted men unwilling to 
be put on a level with other sinners. They do not 
like it that the most notorious criminal may be 
saved on the same terms that are offered to them. 



THE SAVING GRACE OF CHRTST. 185 

But how different the feelings of this apostle ! 
Though a Hebrew of the Hebrews ; though so 
specially favored of Christ, after as well as before 
his fall, yet here he says, " We shall be saved 
even as these sinners of the Gentiles." While so 
many are feeling, " I am holier than thou," is it 
not a privilege to gaze on this poverty of spirit 
which Jesus blesses? The world may demand with 
a sneer how in lowliness of mind each can esteem 
others better than himself. But here is a living and 
lovely illustration of the grace which they pro- 
nounce impossible. Could grace have selected a 
subject by nature more opposed to this heavenly 
humility ? 

But how was this change effected? The answer 
to this will reveal to us the especial glory of the 
w^ords before us. - Peter learned humility in learn- 
ing how he was to be saved. "We believe," says 
he, "that through the grace of the Lord Jesus 
Christ we shall be saved, even as they." 

Some very good men walk in darkness as to the 
relation of our faith to salvation. They are all the 
while looking to their faith, and not to Christ. 
Each new discovery of imperfection in it fills them 
with distress, as though it forfeited their hope of 
heaven. So, instead of the peace of God ruling in 
their hearts, they are in constant anxiety. Alarm 
would better describe their state of mind than either 

16* 



186 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

hope or joy. See how t^iis Scripture guides these 
troubled oues into the path of peace, — "we believe." 
Here is faith, but faith in what? — The goodness of 
our own spiritual character? — The excellence of our 
own religious feelings ? By no means ; see how 
sweetly self passes out of sight when the soul is 
looking unto Jesus. "We believe that through the 
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved." 
Here faith is but the gate through which the soul 
turns from the hot, dusty road of self-righteousness 
into the green pastures where it enjoys adoring 
views of free grace in Christ. The wearisome 
street is forgotten, not in admiration of the gate 
through which we left it, but in the enjoyment of 
the beauties within. The eye wanders from one to 
another in overflowing satisfaction. We stop here 
and there as some new vista of field and grove in- 
vites us to delay, and again glimpses of distant hills 
and quiet rivers beckon us away. We may have 
seen each object before, but they present themselves 
in new combinations, wdth different arrangements of 
light and shade, and the rich variety of loveliness 
rivets our gaze and perpetuates our joy. Ask us 
about the gate, and it has passed from our thoughts. 
It is not the gate that makes us glad, but these 
delightful scenes within it. Even if the gate was 
massive and costly, it is crowded out of mind by a 
glory that excelleth ; and if it was small and mean, 



THE SAVING GRACE OF CHRIST. 187 

that also is lost sight of amid this wealth of beauty. 
Even while passing through it, our minds were on 
the prospect opening before us, and not on it. 

The apostle's "we believe" is crowded out of mind 
by " the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," to which 
it points. Even in the act of believing, our mind 
was on this grace, and ever since it is this grace, and 
not our faith, which yields us joy. Talk to us about 
"our faith," and you fill us with shame on account 
of its palpable deficiencies. We can find peace 
only as we confess them before the Lord. Speak 
to us of " the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ," and 
we are like the lon2:-absent son when he first catches 
the accents of his mother's voice, or like the pil- 
grims in the land of Beulah when " they heard 
voices out of the city, loud voices, saying, ^Say ye 
to the Daughter of Sion, behold thy salvation com- 
eth.' " In the one case our own sins and imperfec- 
tions fill our thoughts. In the other it is what Christ 
has done for us, and is doing ; what he has sufiered 
for us, and promises still to do. 

There is a richness in the expression, " the grace 
of the Lord Jesus Christ," which no mere definition 
can exhaust. Li one view, it is the divine favor 
manifested in his work of redemption, and what a 
variety is here, holding him up before us, as Medi- 
ator, Saviour, Shepherd, Intercessor, or atoning 
Priest ! Does not each ona of these words suggest 



188 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

a separate fulness of spiritual joy? lu another 
view, this grace is the divine favor procured for us 
by Christ ; and here the variety is no less extensive 
or precious. For hi it is contained pardon and 
sanctification, strength and comfort, blessing to-day 
and victory at last; every form which God's love 
assumes, from the choosing us in Christ before the 
foundation of the world, to the welcome into the joy 
of our Lord. 

Yet, manifold as is this grace, there is not one 
iota of it which the Christian is willing to forego. 
Ask him whether he prefers to look on Christ pro- 
curing, or on the favor procured, and he camiot tell 
you. They are like the separate threads wrought 
into one beautiful pattern, from which he cannot 
spare a part. Ask a mother which of her children 
she is willing to spare, and she cannot reply ; the 
more she tries, the less is she able to answer, for 
her heart fills to think that soon, willing or un- 
willing, she and they must part, — she leaving 
them motherless, or else weeping at their graves. 
So the Christian cannot tell you what part of the 
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ he is willing to fore- 
go ; but, unlike the mother, he looks forward to no 
inevitable separation from this grace. For, like 
Christ himself, it is the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever. The only change it knows is from glory 



THE SAVING GRACE OF CHRIST. 189 

to glory, from dimmer to clearer revelations, from 
these earthly foretastes to the heavenly fruition. 

If this ^vuGQ itself is manifold, its results are not 
less varied and abundant. It is pleasant to notice 
the comprehensive way in which the apostle de- 
scribes them all. He does not say, through this 
grace we shall be justified or sanctified or glorified, 
but he uses a word that expresses all in one, when 
he says, " we shall be saved ; " not " we are saved," 
thouo-h in a blessed sense that also is true, as it is 
written, "By grace ye are saved." But in that 
case he would have pointed us to a work not yet 
complete. True, the part already done involves the 
completion of that yet undone, still it is not yet 
completed. But " we shall be saved " carries us for- 
ward to the day when all that Christ has under- 
taken shall have been fulfilled, and each of the ex- 
ceeding great and precious promises fully per- 
formed ; when the glorious plans of God shall have 
been all carried out in the complete perfection of 
the divine ideal, and no one of the redeemed shall 
have one desire unsatisfied. The apostle points us 
forward to all this, and then tells us that the whole 
of it is throuo^h the OTace of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
That procured all, it performs all, and it shall fin- 
ish all. The motives that lead it to save, and, if I 
may so express it, the material out of which it cre- 
ates salvation, all are in and of this grace. 



190 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

Well may we cry, "O glorious salvation ! " and the 
more we search into it, the more will we find occa- 
sion to repeat the cry. But, glorious as it is, there 
is one thing yet more glorious. The grace that 
produces it is more excellent, even as he who hath 
builded the house hath more honor than the house. 
Just as the heavens are glorious, while all their 
splendor reveals only a portion of the glory of their 
Creator, so does the glory of salvation point to the 
greater glory of this grace of the Lord Jesus Christ 
in which it lives and moves and has its being. 

Look up, then, from this handiwork of grace to 
that grace itself. It is the grace ''of Jesus," that is, 
of the Saviour, our Saviour, the Saviour of all who 
have already entered, or shall yet enter, into rest ; 
of ^^ Jesus Christ," that is, the anointed Saviour, he 
whom God provides to save us, and authorizes to 
perform the work. Can there be any disappoint- 
ment, then, to them who trust in his redemption? — 
of the "Lord Jesus Christ," that is, a Saviour whose 
is all power in heaven and in earth, who is God 
over all, blessed forever. He procured this grace ; 
he applies it; he guarantees its eternal success. 
Add to all this, it makes us one with him, most in- 
timately and forever ; it makes us partakers of his 
life, so that he is our everlasting life and jo}^ ; it 
makes us members of his spiritual body, that body 
which shall never know sickness, or suffering, or old 



THE SAVING GRACE OF CHRIST. 191 

age, or death ; it shall make us like him, and seat 
us with him on his throne. 

Then let us seek more worthy views of this grace 
and of him whose it is ; so shall we enjoy more of 
this salvation. Having access by faith into this 
grace, let us so stand in it that we shall rejoice in 
hope of the glory of God ; neither trusting in our 
faith as though it were our Saviour, nor despairing 
because we find in it so many imperfections, but 
exercising a faith whose highest glory is to believe 
that, "through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
we shall be saved ; " assured that simple reliance 
on that grace is as eJQScacious for the salvation of 
the chief of sinners to-day, as it was for the apostles 
►of our Lord. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

CHRIST IN THE ASSEMBLIES OF HIS PEOPLE. 

(y^ HERE are some words in almost constant 
fij ) use ; we can hardly speak without them ; and 
so there are some Scriptures which we make 
mention of whenever we pray. Even when not 
mentioned, still they are in our thoughts, and are 
our encouragement to worship. Such is that word 
of Jesus, "Where two or three are gathered to- 
gether in my name, there am I in the midst of 
them." As we may often go to the same spring, 
and never come away thirsty, so we never recur to 
this word of Christ in vain. 

Some say the man Christ Jesus is not bodily 
present in Christian assemblies, and therefore he 
speaks here of the presence of the Spirit. The 
man Christ Jesus is not bodily present ; but if, when 
among men, he could speak of a Son of man as in 
heaven at the same moment, now that he is on the 
throne can he not speak of himself as present with 
his people here ? 

When he says to his sorrowing disciples, "It is 

192 



cnnisT ly the assemblies of ris people, 193 

expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not 
«nwa\" the Comforter will not come to you," and then 
tells them that the Comforter is the Holy Ghost, 
we cannot misunderstand him ; and is it any less 
plain when he says, ''All power is given unto me in 
heaven and in earth," and the same speaker adds, 
"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of 
the Avorld"? It is the same person who here says, 
" Wherever two or three are gathered together in 
my name, there am I." 

Whenever Christians meet together, then, in the 
name of Christ, they have both the presence of their 
Kedeemer and their Sanctifier. It may seem super- 
abounding grace ; but it is just like God, and illus- 
trates w^hat the apostle calls the "riches of his grace." 
Let us not limit the Holy One of Israel. Let us not 
suggest to the Lord that he be more sparing in the 
bestowment of inexhaustible goodness ; but if Christ 
be pleased to come himself, and bring the Holy 
Spirit with him, let us not refuse his mercy, but 
enjoy it and him the more. Surely, when he says, 
"If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my 
Father will love him, and we — both Father and 
Son — will come unto him and make our abode with 
him," we can doubt no more. 

He knows little of the Blessed Trinity who looks 
upon it as a mere dogma in a creed. It is a world 
of life and love, into which the soul enters through 

17 



194 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

Christ, and of which it finds neither limit nor end. 
He must be a new scholar in the school of Christ who 
thinks that, because he sends the Spirit, therefore 
he does not come himself. The Spirit reveals the 
glory of a present Saviour, and that Saviour is the 
Brightness of the Father's glory, so that he that has 
seen him hath seen the Father ; and still as of old, 
when Jesus speaks peace to his people, the words 
that he speaks he speaks not of himself, for the 
Father loves whom he loves, and speaks through 
the Son his love to us. 

Then away with the parsimonious view of grace 
that says, because Christ sends the Spirit, he does 
not come himself. AYe love the Spirit. We owe 
to him all that we know of Jesus. We depend on 
him for grace on earth and in heaven ; we will not 
undervalue the great love wherewith he now loves 
us, in spite of all our provocation. It is not instead 
of him, but along with him, that our hearts cry 
out for our Elder Brother, who is Immanuel, God 
with us. 

This promise is frequently referred to as proving 
that Christ is divine, because it represents him as 
omnipresent ; but that is not the only way in which 
it sets forth his deity. 

When a man bids farewell to his friend, he speaks 
of enduring friendship that cannot change ; but 
Christ makes no protestations. He simply says, 



CHRIST IN THE ASSEMBLIES OF HIS PEOPLE. 195 

'* Where two or three are gathered together in my 
name, there am I," — a statement most unpretend- 
ing, but infinite in the blessing which it brings to 
the believing heart. In bidding farewell, a man's 
thoughts are on the friends before him. " You and 
I," he says, "may grow gray ere we meet again; 
we may hardly recognize each other as the friends 
of former days ; but, change as the body may, my 
heart will abide unchanging." It was more than 
that which Jesus said. Not merely, " Though one of 
you deny me, and all forsake me, yet I will love you 
still," — though having loved his own he loved them 
to the end, — but, taking in all in every age who 
should believe on him through their word, he says, 
*' Where two or three are gathered together in my 
name," — they may be some of you now present, 
some of the next generation, or some whose bodies 
in the morning of the resurrection will be changed 
without tasting death, — they may live amid these 
familiar scenes, or dwell in the ends of the earth ; but, 
whoever they are, and wherever they meet, "there 
am I." We ask not only, could less than Omnipres-' 
ence be in so many places at once ? but, could less 
than Omniscience look so far into the future? and 
could less than divine Immutability fulfil such an 
engagement? Look at the long succession of the 
redeemed, their untold variety of sins, each wearing 
out the love that seems wasted on it. Could less than 



196 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

divine love survey the whole length and breadth of 
this mass of provocation, and yet utter such a prom- 
ise ? Surely he Avho looked across the whole of this 
sea of transgression, and felt no disposition to draw 
back as he looked, apprehended no change of feel- 
inof in the future, and was not afraid to bind himself 
by these words to every generation of his people, 
must be God. 

And just as he promised, so has he fulfilled. 
With us, the regular recurrence of the same duty for 
a few years soon becomes a lifeless form ; but this 
grace of his, incessantly repeated through the ages, 
is as vital and hearty to-day as when it first began, 
and so shall be to the end. No less than the Omni- 
presence these words imply, this unchanging, in- 
exhaustible goodness approves the speaker, God. 

It is pleasant to reflect that Christ spoke these 
words of his own accord. None of the disciples, 
foreseeing the loneliness and afflictions of the future, 
had beofofed the Master to be with them. His own 
loving foresight utters the promise that soon will be 
•so precious. It was just like him to prevent them 
with the blessings of goodness ; in other words, to 
go before their prayers, and even their sense of 
want, with his divine supplies ; and, when the time 
arrived to appreciate this promise, how delightful 
must have been, not only its fulfilment, but the 



^HRIST IN THE ASSEMBLIES OF HIS PEOPLE. 197 

sight of the grace that provided it so long before- 
hand. 

Herein, also, is wonderful condescension on the 
part of Christ. One would think that, having 
emptied himself of the glory which he had with the 
Father before the world was, and been so long in 
the form of a servant, now, when he is about to 
return to his home in heaven, he would be loth to 
think of leavino^ it aofain to come back to earth ; but 
the joy set before him was not the mere satisfaction 
of a personal return to the Father ; it was the 
holier joy of bringing many sons with him to share 
his heaven, and so he looks beyond sufferings as yet 
mifinished, to a return to earth, in order to impart 
his grace. To-day also this condescending love is 
as fresh as when he spoke these words. He left his 
throne for the cross, and that is past never to return. 
But now, often does he turn from the praises of 
heaven to where two or three gather together in his 
name on earth. The one was a condescension never 
to be repeated ; but this shall continue while there 
are two or three of his disciples in the world. 

It is no matter how obscure they may be, or how 
poor; of the two or three, one may be illiter- 
ate, the second a beggar, and the third a slave, yet 
Christ does not scorn to join the humble party. 
His own people may pass by on the other side. 
Their taste may be shocked by want of refinement 

17* 



198 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

in dress, or language, or modes of worship ; but 
Christ is uot ashamed of the humblest disciple that 
ever called upon his name. His presence is neither 
attracted by refinement nor repelled by coarseness ; 
it is drawn toward his own, who, whatever their 
outward appearance, are inwardly thirsting for his 
grace. When the ^'Dairyman and his Daughter" 
talked together of Jesus, he was there. When 
grateful freedmen meet in some rude cabin, to sing 
of Jesus and call upon his name, he does not de- 
spise their cry ; and when Zooloos walk home to- 
gether, trying to recall the words of the missionary, 
and understand them better, Jesus is just as ready 
to walk with them and open their understandings as 
he was to walk with Cleopas on the way to Emmaus. 

Some two or three disciples in the far West may 
talk over in a log cabin the privileges of their New 
England home, and long to hear once more the Bible 
preaching of their childhood. They may not think 
of it, but Jesus is present, a delighted listener, and 
if they only knew how long he has been training up 
a pastor expressly for them ; above all, if they could 
see how he has purposed to visit* them with his sal- 
vation, they could not refrain from falling down at 
his feet to worship. 

So, too, it is no matter where the two or three 
are gathered together. It may be in some dark re- 
cess of the mine ; or up on the yard-arm where the 



CHRIST IX Tllh: ASSEMBLIES OF HIS PEOPLE. 199 

roar of the wind prevents the oaths of the deck from 
mingling with the words of worship ; or in the dun- 
geon where martyrs encourage each other for the 
death-scene. Christ does not shrink from being 
present in even such places with his own. How of- 
ten has he turned his back on the palace, and passed 
by the mansion* of the noble, to enter some poor 
o'arret where two or three were waitino^ for him with 
longings that could not be denied ! 

On stormy Sabbaths, when the majority of the 
congregation stays away, Christ does not stay with 
them in their comfortable homes, but, true to his 
promise, meets with those who press through cold 
and storm to the appointed place. Did such ever 
practise self-denial in order to meet with Christ for 
naught ? And if some ease-loving disciples did but 
search into the reason why, on such Sabbaths, they 
find so little inclination to pray at home, they might 
find the explanation in their neglect of this word of 
Christ. He thinks much of a Sabbath that calls 
forth those whose hearts are warmed with love, while 
it leaves at a distance the lukewarm and the cold. 

So, in the evening meeting, this one may be absent 
because he is tired, and that one because it is not 
convenient to attend, and still another because he 
has foro:otten it alto<2:ether ; but so Ions: as two or 
three meet together in his name, Christ's place is 
never empty. He never forgets. 



200 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

But some one asks, "What does he do when he 
is present? I never saw him. I never heard him 
speak ; " that is true, but not because he was absent. 
If there was ever any praise that came from the 
heart, Christ was in the heart that saug. If ever 
there was freedom in prayer, it was his hand that 
touched the spring of feeling. If the soul of any 
has been lifted up as on eagle's wings, that, too. was 
from Jesus. There was never one good thought, or 
word, or feeling, in a Christian assembly, that could 
not be traced back to a present Saviour. There 
never yet was any good done where he was absent, 
and there never will be. Point to a meetiug pro- 
ductive of spiritual good, even to one soul, and we 
look on a meeting blessed with the presence of Im- 
manuel. 

If there is any difference between Christian and 
heathen worship, and between the meetings of evan- 
gelical Christians and those who are not, it is not 
because one is by nature better than the other, or 
has more learning, or more heart. All the difference 
lies in this : Christ is present with the one, and ab- 
sent ft-om the other. The one welcomes him in, the 
other shuts him out. If any cannot keep up prayer- 
meetings it is because Christ does not meet with 
them, and not because they are lacking in anything 
else. 

Kever let us forget that all our springs are in 



CHRIST IN THE ASSEMBLIES OF HIS PEOPLE. 201 

Christ ; if he departs, all spiritual l:)lessing goes with 
him. There does not remam a little good, or a little 
life, but none at all. Ministers may set forth the 
doctrines of God's word plainly, faithfully, and with 
great affection ; but if Christ does not give spiritual 
apprehensions of the truth no doctrine is rightly un- 
derstood. So, too, the preacher may set forth with 
great tenderness the consolations of the gospel ; but 
if Christ be not there to set them home to the heart, 
there is no comfort. Everything may be fitted to 
edify ; but if Christ be absent there is no edification. 
Everything may promise conversions ; but without 
him none take place. Like the priests of Baal we 
may become frenzied with excitement ; but without 
Christ there is neither heavenly fire nor life. It is 
only his presence that kindles the flame of devotion 
in our hearts. It was not the thing's written in the 
Scriptures concerning Jesus that made those two 
hearts burn within them on the road to Emmaus ; 
but it was Christ unfolding the Scriptures, and open- 
ing their hearts to receive what he unfolded. With- 
out Christ we can do nothing ; we are nothing but 
masses of guilt and misery. He is our life, and in 
him we live, strengthened with all might according to 
his glorious power. 

This promise forbids us to look to the mesmeric 
influence of large numbers for spiritual profit. In a 
large assembly excitement is intensified by the inter- 



202 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

action of many minds ; but it is not a spiritual power ; 
it operates just as powerfully elsewhere as in the 
chnrch ; it is just as efficient against the truth as for 
it ; it works as efficaciously for vice as for virtue. If 
spiritual profit depends on large assemblies, then this 
promise should read, "Where thousands assemble 
together, there am I." . 

The same is true of the effects of eloquence and 
music. Some may think that with an artistic choir 
and an eloquent preacher spiritual profit is secure ; 
but music and eloquence stir the soul in the political 
assembly, or call forth tears in the theatre as well as 
in the sanctuary. Spiritual profit is not tied to any 
of these things. It is not affirmed that Christ does 
not bless large assemblies, or that he does not pour 
his grace through the channels of music and elo- 
quence 5 but wherever spiritual profit exists it is the 
fruit of the presence and the grace of Christ ; it is 
the work of his Spirit. All else is incidental and ac- 
cessory, and not essential to the result which he pro- 
duces. 

He knew how many of his disciples would dwell 
in lowly seclusion, not only in obscure abodes, but 
with numbers, learning, and public sentiment leagued 
against them ; that, as the servant of Elisha cried, 
"Alas, my master, how shall we do ? " when the army 
of S^a'ia hemmed in the prophet, so they would be 
ready to give up all for lost; but, instead of open- 



CHRIST IX THE ASSEMBLIES OF HIS PEOPLE. 203 

ing their eyes to see the place full of horses and 
chariots of fire round about them, He simply says 
'' there am I," — not angels, or hosts of angels, but 
/, — and what need they more ? 

The family is a sphere of action which the world 
forsakes for more conspicuous theatres ; but Christ 
appreciates that divine institution. Whenever a 
Christian fither and mother meet for family prayer, 
or the religious instruction of their children, there is 
Christ ; and if any cry, " Alas ! I camiot claim the 
promise, for God has taken the companion whose 
prayers uniting with mine had secured this bless- 
ing;" nay, bereaved one, rather will Jesus cleave 
the closer, and make up the loss by his own pres- 
ence ; yea, from among your children he will raise 
up those who shall join the glorified one in worship- 
ping their and j^our Redeemer. 

Christ has a special liking for the families that call 
upon his name. It was so in the days of Abraham 
and Isaac, of Hannah and Samuel, when he appeared 
as the angel of the covenant. It was so when he 
was on earth, as Lazarus and his sisters could testify ; 
and Lois, her daughter, and her grandson, with 
many more since then, can bear witness that he has 
not ceased to love the pious household. Though 
now he does not take our children in his arms, lay 
his hand on them and bless them, yet, if he puts his 



204 



GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 



Spirit in them, and makes them joint heirs with him- 
self, is it not better? 

Was it not with special reference to the daily per- 
formance of domestic duties that Jesus said, "Who- 
soever shall do the w ill of my Father in heaven, the 
same is my brother and sister and mother"? The 
brother, sister, or mother, who performs the every- 
day duties of these relations in the fear of God, 
may feel all the day long that where they are, there, 
too, is their Lord and Saviour. 

These words of Jesus relieve the difficulties of 
some good men on the subject of missions. They 
look out on heathen lands, and in some, they see not 
scattered tribes of barbarians, but a dense popula- 
tion ; the cities are more populous than the largest 
in our own land. Of course their inhabitants are 
not ignorant, but possessed of an extensive literature, , 
and institutions of an advanced civilization. Look- 
ing out on such a prospect, as they see two or three 
feeble missionaries undertake the conversion of such 
a people, they admire their zeal ; but they pity them 
in view of their anticipated disappointment. What 
can a handful of despised stammering foreigners do? 

In themselves they can do nothing ; they cannot 
secure a foothold among the people, much less out 
of those confirmed idolaters make true disciples. 
But if Christ is' with them, is anything too hard for 
the Lord? And it is " where two or three are gath- 



CHRIST IX THE ASSEMBLIES OF HIS PEOPLE, 205 

ered together iu his name," not merely in Christian 
lands, but wherever such are found, that Christ is 
present. Has he not said, "I, if I be lifted up, will 
draw all men unto me '' ? And is not all power in 
heaven and in earth given to him on purpose to 
fulfil this promise ? #The whole machinery of mis- 
sions, then, is very simple. It is just taking Christ 
at his word, and sending two or three into a heathen 
nation in his name, that through them Christ may 
subdue the world ; that he may make the heathen 
like fuel, and missionaries like a torch, and so light 
up a fire of devotion that shall not be quenched, 
until he come the second time without sin unto 
salvation. So has Christ been with his missionary 
servants in time past, and so will he be with them 
alway even to the end; and blessed be his name 
that the fulfilment of this promise does not take 
him away from us, nor does his abiding with us 
interfere with his presence at the very ends of the 
earth. 

Whenever, then, we are gathered together in 
his name, no matter how few, or how unworthy, 
let us "enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and 
into his courts with praise ; " let us "be thankful unto 
him, and bless his name, for the Lord is good, his 
mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth unto all 
generations." 

Some look on faith as a mysterious emotion of 

18 



206 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

untold power, which a man is to create within him- 
self, and on the excellence of w^hich all good de- 
pends. It is, doubtless, a mysterious emotion of 
untold power, but not of our creation. .Wq are 
not to create it, bnt we are to come just as we are ; 
and, as in this case, when Chist says, "I am in the 
midst of them," take him at his word, and leave 
him to manifest his presence in his own way. We 
are not to create the tokens of his presence, but to 
let him reveal them. We are not to produce the 
effects of his presence, but to expect them accord- 
ing to his Word. Indeed, for us to produce those 
effects, and then call it his work, w^ould be a shame- 
ful untruth. 

If, when we gathered together, it w^as with a 
childlike dependence on the promise "there am I," 
what might we not behold of the power of Christ to 
save? But if, on the Sabbath, we only hope that 
the discourse will be interesting, and on the week- 
day that this one rather than that will take a part 
in the meeting, is it any wonder our souls are 
starved ? Is that gathering together in the name of 
Christ? Can we ask him to bless, when all the 
credit would be given to man? 

This promise shows us who is slighted by the 
neglect of the sanctuary. Some deem it a slight 
to the preacher who has toiled to prepare something 
for their spiritual profit, or an injury to their own 



CHRIST IX THE ASSEMBLIES OF HIS PEOPLE, 207 

piety, or a pernicious example to others. It is all 
these ; but all together are not to be compared to 
the slight pat upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who has 
made this appointment with his people. 

]\Ieu may count it a light thing to stay away from 
the house of prayer ; but Christ does not so regard 
it. Such as see in public worship a mere compli- 
ance with a good custom, or a compliment to the 
preacher, may stay away for a slight cause ; but uo 
threats, no, not even persecution, could keep him 
away who has felt the power of this good word of 
Christ. He might fail to keep an appointment with 
man, but not with his Redeemer. 

Such men may be easily recognized by the 
abounding of their spiritual life, for it is still true 
that " those that be planted in the house of the Lord 
shall flourish in the courts of our God." 

If we know something by experience of the mean- 
ing of this promise, then have we sat together in 
heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And yet it is but 
a foretaste. The feast is not here ; it awaits our 
coming in a better world. If here, in addition to 
the intrinsic excellence of spiritual things, we have 
enjoyed them not as the fruit of human eloquence, 
but as the loving gift of Him who purchased them, 
for us with his own blood ; then are we prepared to 
appreciate the bliss of heaven. Communion and 
fellowship with a present Saviour here prepare us 



208 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

for the more blessed communion of that world 
where he prays that we may be with him, and be- 
hold his glory. Much as the Giver of this promise 
imparts on earth, he longs to have us where he can 
reveal his grace more fully, and we enjoy more of 
the infinite revelation. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

FALLING ASLEEP IN JESUS. 



Oil 

'* T is written of Stephen that he fell asleep. 



x-^J What a close to such a tragedy ! What a 

^^ — -^ conclusion for such a tale of sufferinof ! 

Who can look on that raging mob in their work of 

blood, and not start when the writer concludes all 

with a word like that ? 

Such language does not express the thoughts of 
the world. Men dread nothing more than death, 
and at midnight will go far out of their way rather 
than pass alone through the graveyard. They not 
only fear the presence of death, but even w^hen it is 
far off they tremble lest it come near; and if a 
passing object suggests it, it is as if a dark shadow 
rested on a pleasant landscape. Why thus ? Amid 
so much complaint of evil here, why do not men 
look with an equal eye on him who enters and him 
who leaves the world? or even say with one of 
old, "Better is the day of death than the day of one's 
birth"? Because after death is the judgment, and 
God sits there as Judge. 

18* 209 



210 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

Scripture presents quite another view of death to 
those in Christ ; pointing to the place that he has 
gone to prepare it bids them rejoice, for though 
their "earthly tabernacle be dissolved, they have a 
building of God eternal in the heavens." 

Eevealing such views of death, no wonder the 
Bible speaks of it exultingly, for it does not disguise 
a terror, but unfolds a joy. It is a change so desir- 
able as to lead one to say, "All the days of my 
appointed time will I wait till my change come." 
Instead of a departure to a land of darkness, it is 
the dawn of the light that proceedeth from the throne 
of God and of the Lamb. If we go through the 
Bible and gather together the words used to describe 
a Christian death, what other event on earth shall 
we find so full of joy? 

"Gave up the ghost" maj^ indeed sound gloomy, 
but put it in modern English, " He resigned his 
spirit," and language cannot be more beautiful. 
The good man resigns himself to God ; he has long 
loved to trust him ; and, 'after finishing his appointed 
labors, and enduring his last trial, we hear the Lord 
call for the spirit he has been training for heaven, 
and see the believer resign it into his hands in per- 
fect peace, saying, " I know in whom 1 have believed, 
and that he is able to keep that I have committed 
unto him;" and, ere the sentence is finished, the 
shadows flee away and the light of heaven beams 



FALLIXG ASLEEP IX JESUS, 211 

upon his soul. To whom does the Christian thus 
resign his spirit? What does the Saviour mean to 
do with it? He does not tell us, for as yet we 
cannot understand. But he says to one that can, 
'^ Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given 
me be with me where I am, that they may behold my 
glory." And if ever we come into his blessed pres- 
ence, then shall we also know how fitting is that last 
prayer of so many, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ! " 
If the trembling one cannot otherwise conquer his 
fears, let him put his fingers into the print of the 
nails ; yea, thrust his hand, if it must be, into that 
w^ounded side ; anything but withhold confidence 
from Christ. The way lies through a dark valley, 
but only through it. That is not the place pre- 
pared for us. It lies beyond, and Jesus is there ; 
his grace is with us; his angels about us, and we 
are as safe as though the gate of pearl had been 
already passed. We go down into a cold river, and 
its waters chill the heart ; but it is soon crossed, and 
he who saith, "When thou passest through the 
waters, I will be wdth thee," on the other side wipes 
all tears forever from our eyes. Truly, the death of 
the self-righteous we may fear ; but that revealed to 
us in Christ is a favor for which we may thank God 
to-day and forever. In listening to the words, "He 
fell asleep," as men we must exclaim, "How beauti- 
ful ! " but as Christians, " How^ triumphant !" 



212 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

Here is no fear; but like the disciples in the 
case of him whom Jesus loved, we think of 
taking rest in sleep. Thoughts of repose lead us to 
. dwell on its suggestions of peace. The anxious 
cannot sleep ; carefulness plants thorns in the downy 
pillow. And how can a soul out of Christ fall 
asleep with his sins around and within him, and the 
Judge before him ? But he who believes in Jesus is 
at rest ; his preparation is complete, for Christ has 
made it for him, and wrought it in him, and the 
Spirit witnesses that he is a joint heir with his 
Redeemer. When God calls such an one, let him 
fall asleep, for he sleeps in Jesus, and neither death 
nor life can separate him from the love of God 
which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Do you say these are mere generalities, and 
sound well only while things are omitted that would 
mar the painting? Must not the Christian leave 
friends ? And can he fall asleep untroubled by their 
tears? Yes. Here dies a father; one joined to 
him by sacred ties stands weeping w^ith those soon 
to be fatherless. He may leave them poor, far 
from home, and friendless ; but a voice says, "Leave 
thy fatherless children ; 1 will preserve them alive ; 
and let your widows trust in me." To him that is 
not the voice of a stranger. And, having trusted 
his own soul to his keeping, would he withhold them 
from the care of the Good Shepherd ? Do they, too, 



FALLING ASLEEP IN JESUS. 213 

know that voice? Then they shall meet again, for 
Christ keeps every one of them until that clay. 

If anything can disturb his peace, it would be the 
thought that they do not know his Saviour; and, as 
the eye rests on one whom it may not see again, 
save on the left hand in that day, agony may thrill 
the soul ; but only for a moment. He loves God 
more than he loves them. He may fear the results 
of their present course, but he has no fear about God, 
for his way is perfect, and in his hand he leaves 
them all, without anxiety, for God and his glorious 
character fill his heart with peace. 

But is not he himself a sinner ? Yes ; but that 
name, believer, tells the secret of his peace. Do his 
sins gather around him, and clamor for his condem- 
nation? Let them all join to accuse him, Jesus is 
with him, who washed him from them in his own 
blood, and how can they disturb him when his peace 
rests on one able to save to the uttermost, for his 
own name's sake ? How can he be troubled to whom 
Jesus giveth peace? How can he fear when God 
lifts up the imperfect sanctification of earth into 
the finished holiness of heaven? 

But, aside from the fact of guilt, is there not a 
natural dread of death ? There is, for in itself death 
is dreadful. It is a fearful mark of the abhorrence 
God feels toward sin, that even those whom he par- 
dons and loves, for Jesus' sake, must nevertheless 



214 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

pass through death into the place that Christ has 
gone to prepare. It is not strange, therefore, if 
the grave continues to be their terror ; but even 
then, Jesus knoweth their frame, and like as a father 
pitieth his children, so does he pity them ; himself 
walketh at their side through the dark valley ; and . 
will he who saves them from the second death leave 
them to be overwhelmed by the first? To those 
who are faithful unto death — only unto it, not 
through it — he giveth the crown of life. When, 
even in the prospect of its terrors close at hand, 
they hold steadfast the beginning of their confi- 
dence, he cares for them in the actual encounter. 
To such he can unveil heaven so clearly and so near, 
that, as they gaze on its glories, they forget their 
fears, nor know through what places they are passing, 
till, on again looking down, instead of the cold bor- 
der stream, they see the river of life flowing from 
the throne.' Have we not known the timid one, 
who in health could not see a funeral without trem- 
bling, astonish friends by her peace, triumphant 
over the most protracted agonies ; while he of firm 
nerve passed away in silence, and we wondered that 
he spoke not of his Saviour and his crown ? He did 
not need those helps ; even without them his faith 
could calmly rest on Christ. But the Good Shep- 
herd carries the lambs in his bosom. 

Falling asleep also implies weariness. The sloth- 



FALLING ASLEEP IN JESUS. 215 

ful find a restless pillow ; but to the laborer rest is 
sweet. The Bible points us to a place where the 
weary are at rest ; not sluggards in the vineyard, 
but foithful servants. And yet these are not weary 
of their work. So far from that, they long to 
change these feeble bodies for those "raised in 
power," that, like the angels, who excel in strength, 
they may do his commandments. But they are 
weary of the sins of a world alienated from God ; 
weary of the wrong and outrage with which earth is 
filled. They are weary of dishonor heaped on the 
Saviour, and cry, "Kivers of waters run down mine 
eyes, because men keep not thy law." 

It would be a relief if they could turn to a church 
instinct with holy activity ; but when bowed down 
with distress for the perishing, to this is added the 
apathy of those who ought to point them to Christ, 
no wonder they are weary. How can Christians 
feel no more and do no more for Christ, and those 
for whom he thought it not too much to die ? 

But there is another thing of which the Christian 
is more weary still. He has charity for others, but 
knows that himself is without excuse. Each day 
the Bible picture of his evil heart is more painfully 
distinct in the light of his own experience. If at 
anytime he rejoices over one sin uprooted, straight- 
way he meets it flourishing in a different form. He 
finds that no confession, however humble, no en- 



216 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

treat}^, however fervent, not even tears dropping 
from a broken heart, can ensure his safety. With 
confusion of face, he acknowledges the same sin 
deplored a thousand times before. Often has he 
thought that he had prayed fervently to be washed 
thoroughly from his iniquity, and then been over- 
whelmed to find that after all he was not willing 
that God should sanctify him in the only way that 
end could be attained. 

How welcome to such an one, rest from sin in 
the world, in the church, and in his own soul ! To 
go where there is no need to pray " Thy kingdom 
come," for the throne is there, and holiness round 
about it ; no need to ask " Thy will be done ; " for 
it used to follow "as it is in heaven," and now he is 
there, and round about him saints and angels do 
nothing, desire nothing, delight in nothing but that 
will. Not one there is imperfect, and, strangest of 
all, there is no evil in himself. Once he could say, 
" I know that in me dwelleth no good thing ; " but 
now he knows that in him is no shadow of a stain. 
What shall describe the blessedness of the man who 
hungered after righteousness, when he is filled? It 
is a privilege to confess oin- unworthiness, sweet to 
lay all our sins on Jesus ; but that bliss is sweeter 
still. Praj^ei- is turned to praise, and sight sup- 
13lants faith forever. And such sight ! No eye on 
earth has seen it. God OTant that here we mav be 



FALLING ASLEEP IN JESUS. 217 

SO weary of sin, and of hindrances to service, that 
at the close of the day we may enter into that rest, 
and know the joy of that heavenly service ! 

Falling asleep implies also that we shall rise 
again. Sleep lasts only for a time. When we lie 
down we expect to rise again. We would not sleep 
always. Eest only fits us to act with more vigor 
and delight. The invalid loathes even a pillow of 
down. Our hearts cannot find comfort in an eternal 
sleep. We pity the wretchedness that can. We 
love the bright sun, the living trees, and the running 
waters. Existence would be misery did the clouds 
not move nor the winds blow, and nothing stirred on 
land or sea or in the air. Let the infidel enjoy his 
gloomy prospect. 'Not such is the glory for which 
we look. Indeed, take away this idea, and the 
thought of falling asleep is desolate indeed. For 
what is peace if ^t lead to oblivion ? And what is 
rest, if motion and emotion, thought and action, for- 
ever cease? Instead of saying, "Lord, if he sleep 
he shall do well," we must cry out in despair, 
" Then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ are 
perished ! " 

Sleep may refresh, but it cannot remove sorrow 
from the heart. It brings a short forgetfulness, only 
that we may suffer a new distress. The sick may 
dream of health, but he wakes to toss more restlessly, 
from the contrast of his dream with the reality. 

19 



218 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

The prisoner loses sight of dungeon walls, and ia 
dreams again he is a little child, rejoicing in a moth- 
er's love ; but he wakes only to find the hand 
on the dial of the city clock slowly nearing the 
time of execution. It is not so with this sleep. 
That does not remove evil one moment to bring it 
back with more crushing weight the next, after we 
have tasted the sweetness of relief, but removes it 
as far as the east from the west, there to remain for- 
ever. It is a most blessed deliverance, because it 
is eternal. 

Does any believer still hesitate to enjoy it as his 
own? Has all said of the Christian deathbed 
seemed like a dream of poetry when he thinks 
of his own departure? And does he look for its 
certain approach in an unknown hour, through un- 
known paths, with unabated fear? 

So far our thoughts have bee^ on one falling 
asleep at home, kind friends about him, ready to 
imperil their own life in preserving his, stepping 
gently lest they disturb him, or dropping silent 
tears as they think of the separation that shall leave 
them desolate. We have supposed that amid their 
affectionate assiduities he sinks down gently to his 
place of rest. Now let us go back to the scene that 
turned our thoughts in this direction ; for, better than 
even his composure, who in his last illness sent for 
an unconverted friend, to see in what peace a Chris- 



FALLING ASLEEP IN JESUS. 219 

tian could die, will it teach us the secret of a peace- 
ful end to this sinful life. 

The rage of the Jews against Christ was not satis- 
fied with the cruelties of Calvary. It burned only, 
more fiercel}^ against all that called upon his name. 
They sought to quench the fires of conscience in 
the blood of the witnesses of their crime. Repeat- 
edly had they been maddened by the boldness of 
the apostles, and as often had their victims escaped ; 
but now they clutch another. They cannot answer 
his arguments ; but they can buy false witnesses, 
and drag him before 4:he council. Then, exaspe- 
rated that a Nazarene should rebuke them publicly 
for the murder of their Messiah, they gnash on 
him with their teeth, their furious cries drown his 
unfinished defence, they even stop their ears. Who 
ever heard of such intense malignity ? With us, even 
the murderer has time to prepare for death ; guarded 
from those exasperated by his crimes, he is shielded 
from insult, even to the end ; but here a frantic mob 
rush on the innocent. They do not wait even for 
the forms of law, that sometimes lend a show of 
right to tyranny. Think you, after that cruel mock- 
ing that preceded and accompanied the crucifixion 
of his Master the disciple fared any better? Over 
and above their revilings did none press close up to 
smite that unofiendiug victim? No friend is there 
to shield him. They dare not, for they would only 



220 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

furnish another victim, without helping him. No 
representative of law protects him, for judge and 
scribe are mingled with the mob. But that sea of 
.wrath surges through the narrow streets, and pours 
through the city gate. From the flat roofs on either 
side, maledictions and missiles shower on him as he 
is dragged to the open fields, and — there we leave 
him, for who can dwell on the dreadful scene? 
Those ferocious men : those coarse, dull instru- 
ments of death; that shelterless, unpitied, helpless 
sufferer ! Who expects it to be said of him " He 
fell asleep"? We shudder to use expressions ade- 
quate to the occasion. 

Hitherto we have looked on the malice of his ene- 
mies. We have thought only of his bodily torture. 
Now turn to the man himself. See how calmly he 
moves amid that frenzied crowd. No breath of 
agitation disturbs those tranquil features. He hears 
not those blasphemies ; he heeds not those cruelties. 
Mark that inward peace, ripening into rapture. See 
the glory transfiguring every feature. Notice that 
steadfast, upward gaze. Nothing of pain distracts 
it. Hear his enraptured cry, "Behold, I see the 
heavens opened, and Jesus standing on the right 
hand of God." On no other occasion is Christ seen 
standing. He sitteth forever on the throne of his 
glory ; but here he rises to meet his fixithful fol- 
lower. He holds out the crown to the first martyr. 



FALLING ASLEEP IX JESUS. 221 

He permits him to behold his glory, even before he 
comes into his presence. 

No wonder that, beholding such glory, he is 
changed into the same image, and, kneeling amid 
his murderers, prays, not for himself, but for them : 
"Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." 

Here we would linger to gaze on the power of 
our Saviour. We would look through these opened 
heavens into that world of which he is the light 
and life, so as neither in life or in death to fear to 
commit our soul to him. We will not fear, for 

'^ Jesus can make a dying bed 

Feel soft as downy pillows are; 
While on his breast we lean our head, 
And breathe our life out sweetly there." 

Is it not as unnatural for the Christian to fear 
death as for others not to fear it? For what does 
he leave? His sins, his sufferings, his disappoint- 
ments ; all he struggled against, all he grieved 
over, everything that marred his joy. What does 
he obtain ? Perfect holiness ; whatever has been 
the object of his prayers and hopes, all summed up 
in the words, "We shall be like him, for we shall 
see him as he is." On what depends all this? Not 
on man, not on angel, but on Christ. Then all is 
safe; "for Avhom he did predestinate, them he also 
called ; and whom he called, them he also justified ; 
and whom he justified, them he also glorified." 

19* 



222 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

What can unbelief say to these things ? If any still 
cry, "My sins ! my sins ! " then, as Stephen dealt with 
his murderers, so let us deal with our sins. Let 
them crowd around our dying-bed. Let them all 
come, and with one voice clamor for our condemna- 
tion. We will not reply to their accusations ; but 
we will look up steadfastly to Jesus, interceding for 
us at the right hand of God, and commit our all into 
his gracious hands. He has promised that he will 
not forsake us ; and he never will. That very .pres- 
ent help in trouble will not leave us in the last and 
sorest. And if we still feel anxious about that final 
conflict, we will employ ourselves in the work of 
serving Christ to-day, and leave to him that hath 
loved us, and given himself for us, the whole care of 
making us more than conquerors in that day. He 
who enabled Stephen to fall asleep in such circum- 
stances is able to do exceeding abundantly for us 
also, above all that we can ask or think. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

CHRIST OUR SHEPHERD ON EARTH. 

(^^r HE question may be asked, "Why is such 
/I J j prominence given to the office of a shepherd 
^— ^ in the Bible?" for it is a most painful life, 
as one who had spent many years in it testified. 
"In the day, the drought consumed me, and the 
frost by night, and my sleep departed from my eyes." 
Shepherds also rank low in the social scale, and a 
community devoted to pastoral pursuits never at- 
tains the prosperity of one devoted to agriculture 
or commerce. When Israel settled in Canaan the 
shepherd tribes selected the most remote parts of 
the country as best suited to their employment. 
They were shepherds who treated the daughters of 
Jethro so discourteously at the wells of Midian, and 
had we been present at those encounters of shep- 
herds and shepherdesses, we had found the swarthy 
daughters of the priest as vociferous, to say no more, 
as their scarcely more masculine assailants. Zip- 
porah afterwards proved that however poets sing of 
"gentle shepherds," shepherdesses sometimes are 

223 



224 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

not so gentle. When Israel prospered, shepherd 
life retreated to the borders of the desert, as at 
Bethlehem and Tekoah, and prophets denounced 
desolation, saying, ^' O land of the Philistines, I 
will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhab- 
itant, and the sea-coast shall be cottages for shep- 
herds and folds for flocks." 

Why, then, is this office assigned to Christ to rep- 
resent one of the most precious relations he sus- 
tains to his people? 

The occupation became invested with glory iu 
Jewish eyes, because their great ancestor was a 
shepherd. They looked back on the days of Abra- 
ham as on a golden age, and the life which he led 
was in their eyes only less than heavenly. 

David could not have forgotten the discomfort of 
such a life, but lifted up as he was to a bleak eleva- 
tion, on which every passing tempest spent its force ; 
the relief found in looking up to One far higher 
above him than he had been above his flock, guiding, 
protecting, and caring for him, as he once cared for 
them, must have been one to which each discom- 
fort of both past and present experience only lent 
additional sweetness. 

The idea of a shepherd is dear to all men, because 
it is so associated in our thou2:hts with Paradise. 
Of all other animals the sheep retains most of the 
spirit of Eden. It still clings to man, and looks up 



CHRIST OUR SHEPHERD O.V EARTH. 225 

to him for food and shelter, for guidance and pro- 
tection. We cannot conceive of a flock of sheep 
roaming the forests like wild beasts. They look 
to man as their divinely appointed guardian, and 
there is that in their helplessness, and the number 
and ferocity of their enemies, which touches the 
Christian heart, for it so vividly set^ forth our own 
absolute dependence on the Good Shepherd. It will 
not sound blasphemous in a Christian ear to say that 
it seems as if we loved these innocent flocks for 
Jesus' sake, for thoughts of him are linked in with 
them ; and is not the peculiar attraction every child 
feels towards " a little lamb" intended to draw them 
to the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of 
the world ? Doubtless through this association of 
ideas many a dear child has been brought to Jesus. 
God has so constituted man that " shepherd " is a 
pleasant word. It paints before the eye of the mind 
a whole Arcadian landscape, with its groves and 
fields, its streams and fountains, its grassy knolls 
and rocky steeps, and the flocks cropping the green 
grass, or lying under the shady trees ; but it is far 
more than this to the Christian. While the poetry 
of every land speaks of the ideal beauty with which 
all invest the shepherd life, he discerns in it a most 
precious glimpse of Christ. The relation seems to 
have been created on purpose to set forth the loving 
kindness of Immanuel. All the beauty of rural 



226 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

scenery pales before the greater beauty of this view 
of Christ. 

To the sick man, lying in one position till every 
nerve thrills with agony, that is a precious view of 
God which represents him as making all his bed in 
his sickness, as if God's hand reached down from 
heaven to do foj; the sufferer what he could not do 
for himself, tenderly making that soft, and cool, and 
pleasant, which had been hard, and hot, and full of 
misery ; but what that does for one phase of distress, 
this does for the whole circle of troubles and wants, 
yea, even fears. It makes God a very present help 
in trouble, and he wears such an aspect of friend- 
liness that we are sweetly attracted to his side. We 
may have felt that one so great could not stoop to our 
little affairs ; but the name " shepherd " helps us to 
enjoy Him, without whom not even the sparrow falls. 
We can speak to him more freely of our troubles, 
and under his watchful eye we feel both safe and 
satisfied. 

Christ does not say, " I am the strong Shepherd," 
though he is the Lord God Omnipotent ; nor " the 
faithful Shepherd," though, "even if we believe not, 
yet he abideth faithful ; " but " I am the Good Shep- 
herd," as though among all his attributes he gloried 
most in goodness. So, when Moses would see his 
glory, the answer came, " I will make all my good- 
ness pass before thee." 



CHRIST OUR SHEPHERD O^ EARTH. 227 

There is peculiar tenderness manifest in this view 
of God ; but the Good Shepherd does not come 
divested of power to bless. Only his power wears 
such a friendly look that we do not fear it. The 
same power that moves the planets in their orbits 
defends us from all evil. 

Is wakefulness needed in a shepherd? Ours 
never slumbers, and while in a mere man this truth 
would suggest a painful, and, in the end, unavailing 
struggle against nature, in his case we have no 
such thought, for he is the living God, and in his 
heaven even the redeemed find no need of night to 
recruit exhausted energies. 

One would think tender care essential in a good 
shepherd, from the frequency with which we hear the 
expression "tender shepherd;" and ours, though 
so mighty, is yet so gentle that the epithet applied 
to his mercies is not, abundant, or, constant, though 
they are both, but tender. "Tender mercies" best 
describes the nature of his dealino:s with our want 
and misery. We have heard of hammers, too pon- 
derous for human hands to lift, that strike through 
huge masses of iron in their resistless sweep, and 
yet can be guided so as to touch the most fragile 
substance without breaking it ; but what are such 
things to that Hand which upholds all worlds, and 
yet imparts comfort so gently that even the dying 
are strengthened by the consolation? Talk of gen- 



228 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

tleness and tenderness ! We cannot know them till 
we know the care of Christ onr Shepherd. The 
softest touch of man sometimes causes the sensitive 
flesh to quiver with agony ; but His touch soothes 
and heals. 

Delightful as may be our associations with a shep- 
Jierd, we cannot appreciate all its sweetness, for we 
do not live in a land of shepherds ; but in Bible 
lands, a shepherd is to-day just what he was when 
Jesus said, '^I am the Good Shepherd." Let us 
look at this relation as there revealed, for it may 
help us to determine whether we have any right to 
say, ^' The Lord is my Shepherd," as well as afford 
some precious glimpses of Christ. 

Here, if a flock pass along the street, they are 
driven with force and outcry ; one urges them from 
behind, and another beats them back from the tempt- 
ing side street, while the timorous flock, huddled 
together, rush along in terror ; but in the East, to- 
day, the shepherd calleth his sheep by name, and 
leadeth them out. As he goes forth in the morning 
we might think he was leaving his charge behind ; 
but see! he goes before, and they follow him, and if 
any, attracted by tender grass, stop by the wayside, 
or stray into the tempting fields, he calls, and they 
run after him. He calls them by name, and they 
respond to the call. If he stops, they stop ; and 
when he goes on, they, too, go with him. Some- 



CHRIST OUR SHEPHERD ON EARTH. 229 

times he maj^ meet a fellow-shepherd, and, tempted 
bj the pleasure of social intercourse, they may re- 
main together till the flocks seem mingled in hope- 
less confusion, and we look for a protracted work 
of sorting them out again. But look ! the moment 
one rises to go, and speaks to his own, they at once 
separate themselves from the rest and follow him, 
"while the others know not the voice of a stranger. 
At noon they rest together under some shady tree, 
or in the shadow of a great rock in that weary land, 
and in the evening he gathers them together in the 
fold, where they are safe from ravenous beasts, 
their guardian, wrapped in his outer garment, lying 
down amono; them. Cases have been known where 
a hireling, whose own the sheep were not, has gone 
off at night-fall to find more comfortable quarters in 
the adjacent village, and returned in the morning to 
find the bleedinof remnants of a flock which the wolf 
had slaughtered in the fold at his leisure ; but our 
Shepherd redeemed his flock w4ih his own blood, 
and never leaves them. 

In Syria, the roads at the best are. mere narrow 
paths, and these are often very steep and rough. 
Sometimes they occupy a shelf of rock, between a 
precipice that rises from the inner edge, and a per- 
pendicular descent on the other. Such places seldom 
have the protection of a wall ; but in one so pro- 
tected, w^here only one horse could pass at a time, 



230 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

some travellers found themselves face to face with 
a shepherd and his flock. It was too narrow for the 
horses to turn; what shall they do? Dr. Jessup, 
who was present, and describes the scene, looked 
for the shepherd to retreat with his charge. Instead 
of that, he leaps on to the low wall, and, though the 
waves of the Mediterranean dash far below, at his 
word', the flock follow him, one by one, along the 
dizzy verge, till they can leap down again into 
the path beyond the line of travellers. So our 
Shepherd does not send us away from his presence 
into peril or suffering; but himself goes before, 
" leaving us an example that we should follow in 
his steps," and, at the same time, "holds up our 
goings in his paths, that our footsteps slip not." 
Doubtless it was just such a rocky pass, clambering 
up and down the face of the precipice, that suggested 
to David this illustration of the providential care of 
our heavenly Shepherd. 

While dwelling on these general views, let us not 
forget the diversity that is sure to show itself in actual 
life. A part of the flock may follow close after the 
shepherd, and respond at once to his call, but others 
follow afar off*; attracted by inviting objects on all 
sides, they just keep the main body of the flock in 
sight, so as not to be left entirely alone. That is 
an instructive scene, described by Dr. Thomson, 
where the shepherd goes down the steep banks of a 



CHRIST OUR SHEPHERD ON EARTH. 231 

river and wades into the rapid current ; the faithful 
ones of the flock follow close behind him, and so 
cross easily where the stream is most shallow and 
the footing most secure, while the stragglers are 
swept into deeper water, and cross with much danger 
as well as difficulty. A little lamb is borne away 
helpless by the rushing waters, but the shepherd 
plunges after it, lifts it into his bosom, and bears it 
safely to the shore. Let us keep so near our Shep- 
herd, that, when we pass through deep waters, instead 
of sinking under a sense of overpowering evil, we 
shall hear his voice directing us where to go, and 
cleave to him who selects the way and sustains us in 
it ; and in that last river this side the better land, 
may we respond to his " Fear not, for I am with 
thee," with our "Yea, though I walk through the 
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, 
for thou art with me." 

Standing by the gate that opens at the end of the 
bridge which connects Mosul with ancient Nineveh, 
we may see a Koordish shepherd step upon the crazy 
structure, that, without railing or other protection, 
stretches across the arrowy Tigris ; his flock follow 
after, shrinking in terror from the loaded animals 
that they meet, and keeping close to their well-known 
leader. They pass through the city gate and along 
the narrow, crowded street, picking their way among 
bales and boxes ; now and then they start at the strange 



232 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

sights and sounds that meet them on all sides ; some- 
times dartino: between the feet of horses and camels, 
and amid all responding confidingly to him who thus 
leads them to the slaughter. 

Does the Good Shepherd thus betray his flock? 
Nay, verily. "He leadeth us in the paths of righteous- 
ness for his name's sake ;" but himself was thus led 
as a lamb to the slauo^hter. We cannot look on such 
a sight without thinking of Him who giveth his life 
for the sheep ; not driven by a force he could not re- 
sist, but led by his own love to the last ; not allured 
all unsuspecting to a cruel fate, but looking forward 
from eternity to the garden and the cross, and hasten- 
ing forward to lay down his life, though he had power 
to ascend uninjured to the throne, and leave us to 
the destruction that we deserved. 

The life of his ancient people was made bitter by 
cruel bondage, and their children were doomed to 
death by their oppressors lest they should avenge 
their fathers' wrongs. Then the Good Shepherd 
called his own sheep by name, and brought them out 
of Egypt with a mighty hand. He slew the men 
that sought their life. He opened a path for them 
through the sea. He went before them in a pillar of 
cloud by day and of fire by night. He rained bread 
for them from heaven ; he led them ; he instructed 
them ; he kept them as the apple of his eye. AvA 
so now does he lead out his people from under tlie 



CHRIST OUR SREPHERD ON EARTH, 233 

power of Satan. lie became partaker of our nature, 
that through death he might open up our way to life. 
How carefully Scripture describes his incarnation ! 
God sent his Son, not in the likeness of flesh merely, 
for that might have been the likeness of man unfall- 
en. Nor did he send him "sinful flesh," for then 
he had shared in our ruin ; but "in the likeness of 
sinful flesh," tempted in all points like as we are, 
yet without sin. 

Thus he became our Redeemer, and he redeemed 
us with his own blood. But how does he impart to 
us this redemption ? Standing afar ofl\ does he sum- 
mon, at once, whole churches into the enjoyment of 
his grace? Not so ; one by one he calleth his own 
sheep by name. We may picture him as occupied 
with so many and so weighty cares that he cannot 
notice us, or, if he does, only in a general or hurried 
way ; but he listens to each broken cry, looks into 
each particular case, and, selecting out of all others 
the methods most appropriate to each, he blesses 
every one who comes unto God by him, just as though 
he existed alone in the universe, and was the sole 
object of his gracious care. 

To form the acquaintance of a stranger, we need 
an introduction ; even then he may forget our name, 
or fail to recognize us when next we meet ; but Christ 
needs no introduction, for he has known us from the 
beginning. He never forgets either names or faces. 

20* 



234 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

Those twelve names borne on tlie breast of the high 
priest into the holy place are the symbol of a reality 
found only in Christ. 

Preachers can only say in general terms, "Come, 
for all things are ready ;" " Whosoever will, let him 
come and partake freely; " but all the while One, 
whose latchet preachers are not worthy to unloose, is 
speaking to individual hearts, calling them by name, 
as when he said "Follow me" to Matthew, and 
James, and John. Now, as of old, singling out one 
from the multitude of impotent folk, he saith, ^^ Wilt 
thou be made whole ? " 

Some may suppose that,*though words of comfort 
are recorded for our use, yet the personal comfort 
that Christ imparts is reserved for another world ; 
but Scripture teaches us to say, " I will fear no evil, 
for thou art with me," — not hast been in days past^ 
not wilt be in days to come, but art now here ; and 
the Shepherd himself saith, "Fear not, fori am with 
thee," — not my promises onljs or my blessing, but 
I myself, a very present help in trouble. 

Would it be pleasant, when sick among strangers, 
to have our mother step into the room and resume 
the loving ministrations of early days ? Then in the 
day of darkness, listen : "The Master is come and 
calleth for thee ;" yes, for thee ; not for the disciples 
in Bethany, but for thee, Mary. So he calleth his 
own sheep by name in time of trouble ; none is for- 



CHRIST OUR SHEPHERD ON EARTH. 235 

gotten, but he givetli to each his portion in due sea- 
son ; and if, when all absorbed in our grief, we hear 
a loving utterance of our name even at the sepulchre 
of those we love, let our"Rabboni" be as prompt 
and as cordial as was that of ^lary Magdalene. 

Can none of us recall a time when our spirit was 
overwhelmed within us, and this precious promise 
seemed spoken by a voice from heaven, or that other 
Scripture appeared written in characters of glory ? 
Who uttered that promise with such heavenly sweet- 
ness? AYho made that word of God radiant w^ith 
light divine? It was not man ; for then why did not 
others around us share in the blessing? Was it not 
Je.^us, opening our understanding, as once he did 
that of his disciples a^iiong the mountains of Judea? 

The same ascended Saviour, who once showed 
himself to Saul in the way, while those around him 
stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no man, 
calls us by name to-day. Give ear to that voice, and 
"Ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with 
peace ; the mountains and the hills shall break forth 
before you into singing, and all the trees of the field 
shall clap their hands." 

There is not a more blessed comfort in any afflic- 
tion, than to rejoice that the nature and degree, the 
circumstances and duration of it,. are all in the hands 
of the Good Shepherd, who gave his life for us. 

In like manner at the end he calls his own out of 



236 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

a world of sin and sorrow into rest. Darkness veils 
the morrow till it comes, and then sometimes it seems 
as if events happened at random. One friend dies 
far away, another falls at our side. The mother is 
taken away from her helpless babe. The aged wid- 
ow is left childless, and it seems as though some 
"general law" rushed blindly on, crushing under 
its ponderous wheels whatever stood in the way of 
its merciless advance. Our feeling is, that if Christ 
had the control of things, these events had not oc- 
curred. It is true that man, trying to arrange for 
many, may be unable to secure the highest good of 
one, and the best he can do is to secure the general 
good of the largest number with the least injury to 
the few. But with the Lord nothing is impossible ; 
where we see only jarring interests, his eye detects 
a common unity. He is Most High over all diffi- 
culty. General laws are his servants, not his mas- 
ters. "They do his will, hearkening unto the voice 
of his commandments." 

There is no chance in either the time or the man- 
ner that his people are gathered home ; not one 
arrives too late, or too early, at the door of our 
Father's house ; not one finds his coming unexpected 
or his welcome unprepared. If the kingdom was 
prepared for them before the foundation' of the 
world, so was the time of reaching the gate of pearl. 
Our Jesus hath the key of death ; every turning of 



CffRIST OUR SHEPHERD ON EARTH. 237 

that key was arraiiged from eternit}^ and he never 
forgets or mistakes the tune ; nor does the soul, on 
entering heaven, find that an earlier arrival, or a 
longer dela^^,* would have been more for his advan- 
tage. He who prepares a place for us, also prepares 
us for that place ; the two preparations advance with 
equal step, and are complete at the same moment : 
one neither anticipates the other, nor needs to be 
waited for. No heartless general law tj^rannizes 
over us in the absence of Immanuel, but at the best 
moment, best for him who goes, and best for those 
who remain, each one in his own order enters into 
rest. Happy he, whether having tarried many years 
or few days in this vale of tears, to whom Christ 
opens the door of endless rest ! 

Christ does not love us in the mass, but feels a 
special love for each disciple, and shows it in a 
special way ; his dealings with no two are the same, 
and he never gives to one what is best adapted for 
another. Each is learning to smg a part all his own 
in the heavenly symphony of praise, and all will 
blend into one perfect harmony. Christ does not 
make promises to classes, but to the persons that 
compose them. He knows no other good of Zion than 
that which results from the highest good of each. 

We may lay hold of every promise as though ad- 
dressed to us alone, and have no fears that any less 
supply will remain for others. If we light our lamp 



238 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

at that of our neighbor, or drink from his spring, 
will he have any less of either water or light ? and 
is the water of life, or the light of God's countenance, 
more easily exhausted ? Has God appointed a day 
for us to fast from the fulness that there is in Christ ? 
Does he rebuke us for enjoying more than our share 
of his grace ? Is Christ so poor that we must eat 
sparingly lest we exhaust his stores, or live frugally 
lest w^e expend his treasures ? 

Should Christ, to-day, appear in person and in- 
vite us by name to partake of his saving grace, 
would we be startled ? That grace is as specific as 
though he did so, and so is his desire that we should 
enjoy its fulness. 

Could we read our name in the Lamb's book of 
life, would our cup of gladness overflow? His in- 
tercession to-day is as particular and personal as 
though we heard the mention of our names. We 
may not look withiii the leaves of that book of life, 
but if to us his name is as ointment poured forth ; 
if we know his voice, and love nothing better than 
to hear it ; if we love to follow his leading, and 
our greatest burden will be lifted off when we have 
respect unto all his commandments ; — the time is not 
far off when we shall read the names in that book 
with joy. Oh that our obedience to him were as af- 
fectionate as his love is specific ! When shall our 
faith do more justice to the love which he bears to us ? 



CHAPTER XIX. 

CHRIST OUR SHEPHERD IN HEAVEN. 

(^^HE Bible presents manj' attractive views of 
/■ I ] heaven. Now it is the New Jerusalem 
^^=^ whither Grod's chosen ones are going up to 
worship, — the glorious capital, towards whose pal- 
aces they bend their steps. Again it is Paradise, 
where the redeemed rest beside the river of life, and 
under the shadow of the tree of life, hard by the 
throne. At another time it is our Father's house, 
where all the family now scattered shall meet to- 
gether, one glorious household of the Lord. But, 
whatever the view, Christ stands in the foreground. 
In the New Jerusalem the Lamb is the light there- 
of. In Paradise the river of life proceeds from the 
throne of God and of the Lamb. The mansions in 
our Father's house are all made ready by the hands 
once pierced for us ; and what is the rest that re- 
maineth but a falling asleep in Jesus, — not merely 
with him, but in him, as the place of eternal safety 
and everlasting peace. 

The beloved disciple gives us a delightful glimpse 

239 



240 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

of Christ in heaven, when he says, "The Lamb in 
the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall 
lead them unto living fountains of waters." He is 
there, as here, " The Lamb of God." Him in whom 
we trust to-day, we shall recognize in that day ; only 
what is now dimly seen in shadow and symbol shall 
there stand forth, not merely in the light of heaven, 
but himself that light. 

Now we look on him as the Lamb slain ; but there 
he is the Lamb in the midst of the throne. There 
is no such sisrht as that on earth. Here, lions sit on 
thrones, and lambs lie bleeding in the dust ; butthere, 
he sitteth forever on the throne of his glory ; yes, 
His glory, not only belonging to him, bat proceeding 
from him. The throne does not glorify him, but he 
glorifies the throne. All glory there, be it of throne, 
or crown, or sceptre, exists for him and proceeds 
from him. The Lamb, however glorified, will 
still be recognized by those that knew him here ; 
but his glory, as it shines out from the midst of the 
throne, we cannot know till these eyes shall behold 
it. Foretastes of it we may enjoy, and on these, 
as a foundation, we may build up anticipations of 
what shall be ; but one glimpse of the reality will 
put them all to shame. We may think of infinite 
purity and gentleness wielding infinite and supreme 
authority. Yf e may think of him as making com- 
pensation to all that ever suffered wrong on earth, — 



CHRIST ODE SHEPHERD IN HEAVEN. 241 

a compensation so ample that all previous suffering 
shall be swallowed up in present felicity, and then 
we may think of this power as universal and eter- 
nal, so that evil shall be thenceforth impossible ; 
still ej^e hath not seen such glory. We can only 
look round on the w^^ong and outrage with which 
earth is filled, and vainly try to imagine that far 
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory that 
shall compensate for it all. 

The si^fht of the Lamb in the midst of the throne 

o 

will also give us views of the " God-man," unknown 
till then. Now, we think of him as a man, and our 
own feelings help us to apprehend him as such. 
But w^hat do we know of him as God ? What sym- 
pathy can we have with his recollection of the glory 
which he had wath the Father before the world was ? 
or with that consciousness of all power on earth and 
in heaven ? Then, we shall know even as also w^e are 
known. We shall see him as he is, and the sight 
will reveal the fulness of the glory of this union of 
God and man in our Immanuel. Now, it may seem 
to some a mere dogma in theology ; then, even those 
who now find in it the nourishment of their spiritual 
life will see in it a glory surpassing all their hopes. 
But this glimpse of his* majesty only prepares the 
way for another manifestation of his glory. " The 
Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed 
them." He is not only on the throne to receive 

21 



242 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

adoration, but he feeds those who have come out of 
ofreat tribulation, and washed their robes white in 
his precious blood. "Feeds?" some may ask, won- 
dering ; can those heavenly bodies suffer hunger and 
partake of food as these do here? It is not strange 
that they ask the question ; the English word "feeds" 
so feebly represents the beauty of the original, which 
conveys a meaning as full of sweetness as this is 
gross and earthly. It is a verb formed from the 
noun shepherd, meaning, literally, to "act the shep- 
herd," and tells us that in heaven, as well as on 
earth, "Christ is our Shepherd." 

Some might call this a confusion of metaphors, 
making one person at once a Lamb and a Shepherd ; 
but whenever language has to do with Christ, it ex- 
hausts itself in the effort to set forth the fulness and 
variety of his glory. 

Any illustration can only set forth one view of the 
many-sided excellence of our Redeemer. It needs 
many to furnish a complete picture of him in whom 
all fulness dwells. So, in other instances, he is at 
once both victim and officiating priest, corner-stone 
and top-stone, yea, and temple also. 

Even on earth w^e love to sing, " The Lord is my 
Shepherd," for, as wehave«een, it is a most precious 
view of Christ. Precious, not merely because it sug- 
gests thoughts of rural scenery and quiet happiness, 
of pastures clothed with flocks, or rest at noon under 



cnmsT OUR shepherd ly heavek. 243 

shady groves, but because of the ineffable sweetness 
of the relation itself; the kind interest, the loving care, 
the personal intercourse of the Good Shepherd with 
his flock. Other shepherds may encounter danger in 
defence of their charge ; but ours made us the sheep 
of his pasture at the cost of his own life ; and then, 
"He calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth 
them out." What Christian does not understand 
this? If we are not now going astray, it is because 
he brought us back from our wanderings. If we 
are in the right way, it is because he leadeth us in 
the paths of righteousness. If we neither want nor 
fear want, it is because the key of every storehouse 
of blessing is in the hands of our Joseph. If in 
danger we are not afraid, it is because we hear him 
saying, "Fear not, for I am with thee." Some rest 
in the guardian care of angels ; but the sweetest 
thing about them is that they are His angels, sent by 
him to camp round about us, the Lord of angals 
being captain of the guard. If we do not tremble 
at temptation, it is because he prays for us that our 
faith fail not ; so are we more than conquerors through 
him that loved us. He sees the plotting of our 
enemies from the first, and, when they rise up 
against us, himself is the strong tower into which 
we run and are safe. Therefore, though we walk 
through the valley of the shadow of death, we fear 
no evil ; for not departed friends, not angels, but 



244 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

Christ is with us ; and, if he be with us, who or what 
can harm us? 

Now, this relation so precious on earth does not 
end with death. He leadeth us into the green pas- 
tures of Paradise, and beside the river of the water 
of life. No pastures so green as those on either 
side of that river. No waters so still as those that 
flow from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 

If Saviour is the most prominent title of Christ 
on earth. Shepherd is the most conspicuous there, 
not as superseding the other, but bringing out its 
fulness. Now wo wait for his salvation ; then we 
explore its treasures. As our Saviour on earth he 
saves us ; as our Shepherd in heaven he unfolds 
that salvation more and more to our admiring eyes. 

It is not for us on earth to know all that will be 
done by our Shepherd in heaven, any more than the 
other glories of that inheritance ; for none of them 
all has entered into the heart of man. No earthly 
balance can w^eigh that weight of glory. 

But we can compare Christ, as he appears to-day, 
with what we shall see of our Shepherd in that day, 
by simply noting the imperfections of our present 
view ; for, though Christ does not change, though 
heaven does not add to, nor earth take from, his per- 
fection, yet our apprehension of his agency will be 
very different in heaven from what it is on earth. 
Our knowledge of his dealings with us, as our 



cnniST ovn snEPnERo ix heaven, 2i5 

Shepherd in this life, will be very different from 
what it is to-day. 

Now we see the agency of our friends ; they love 
us, and love prompts them to deeds of kindness. 
We see also the agency of our enemies. But then 
we shall see how Christ employed both, and acted 
through them for our salvation, guidhig the good- 
will of these into profitable channels, and overruling 
the ill-will of those, so that it wrought together with 
all things for our good. Besides his agency through 
others, we shall also see his own personal dealings 
with us. In many a place, and many an event, 
where now we do not think of Christ, we shall find 
that he w^as present. Many a wonderful deliver- 
ance, which now we do not understand, will then be 
all plain. Many an unexpected enjoyment will then 
find fitting explanation. We shall find our whole 
life, from the cradle to the grave, radiant with his 
presence. Himself will point out the connection of 
events as we cannot see them now. Many an inci- 
dent now forgotten will he recall to our recollec- 
tion, and tell what he had to do with it, and what it 
had to do with events that followed. When the 
veil that now hides his agency shall be taken away, 
think what a view of our Shepherd will unfold to 
our gaze. But, besides his agency at the time, will 
be a view of all the preparation he made for each 
occurrence, in ourselves and in others, in circum- 

21* 



246 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

stances and influences, and manifold lines^of action, 
all tending to the one result ; and not preparation 
only, but where now we see only disconnected 
events, there we shall perceive the relation of 
each to each, all working out our salvation accord- 
ing to an eternal plan, and under the supervision of 
our divine Shepherd. Now, we do not see him, we 
catch no glimpse of his person. Our communion 
is the communion of faith. But there, these eyes 
shall behold him ; not as we now see one another, 
beholding only the external appearance, but we shall 
see in him the brightness of the Father's glory. 
In him we shall behold the beauty of holiness, as 
nothing ever revealed it hitherto. In him we shall 
admire the beauty of love that now passeth knowledge. 
The union of divine majesty and glory with human 
sympathy shall then shine out in the Good Shep- 
herd in a manner undreamed of before. Now, when 
our Shepherd does us a kindness we do not see his 
loving face, his beaming eye ; we do not feel the 
thrilling touch of the hand once wounded for us. 
There it shall be difierent, how diflferent we do 
not know, but far, very far beyond aught that is 
known on earth. We only know how he prayed, 
" Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given 
me be with me where I am, that they may behold my 
glory ; " and will the sight of that glory disappoint 
us? 



CHRIST OUR SHEPHERD IN HEAVEN. 217 

But, besides the diflerence in our knowledsre of 
what he does as our Shepherd here, there will also 
be a great contrast between what lie did on earth 
and what he shall do for us in heaven. Now he 
protects us from foes ; then we shall need no protec- 
tion. Now he succors us in temptation ; there Satan 
will no more annoy. The world, with all its allure- 
ments, shall have given place to a new earth, wherein 
dwelleth righteousness. Our own hearts, too, now 
deceitful above all things, demand much attention 
from our Shepherd. On their account we are in heavi- 
uess through manifold temptations, without which we 
would make shipwreck concerning faith. Could we 
but see the dangers on every side ; could we see 
how deliverance from one, exposes us to another, 
— the same instrumentality that destroys worldliness 
fostering spiritual pride, Christian activity weaken- 
ing our sense of dependence on God, and depend- 
ence on God dulling the edge of active obedience, 
prayer taking the place of work, and work made an 
excuse for neglecting prayer, — could we see these, 
and many more perils to our piety, we should have 
a deeper sense of our need of this Shepherd to-day. 
But there, all this is passed away. The evil heart is 
destroyed ; the new heart is perfect in holiness. 
The Shepherd, once busy in defending and sanctify- 
ing, is employed in giving an eternal reward. The 
love that once bore with our sins, now bestows the 



248 GLIMPSES OF cnmsT. 

inheritance. Is not this a precious glimpse of our 
Shepherd in heaven? But wait till we can look 
back on every hindrance to salvation, removed by 
his hand, and in the light of that, we will be pre- 
pared for the view of this, that shall then unfold 
forever. How often will we compare that everlast- 
ing reward with this preparatory discipline ; that 
land of promise with the desert ; that Father's house 
with the perils and privations of the way ! 

Thus far we have been groping our way by con- 
trasting present things with things to come ; but 
this Scripture reveals a precious view of the work 
of our Shepherd in heaven. '^He shall lead them 
by living fountains of waters." The picture is 
beautiful, but its spiritual meaning is more than 
that. In Eastern lands, the shepherd leads his flock 
to the deep well, whence he draws water for them 
all; and so our Shepherd, with joy, draws water 
out of the wells of salvation above. Those waters 
above the firmament are more refreshing than all 
below. Would any know what they are? Hear 
the complaint of God : " They have forsaken me, the 
fountain of living waters ! " Hear the invitation of 
Christ: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me 
and drink ; " and again : " Whosoever drinketh of 
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst ; 
but it shall be in him a well of water, springing up 
into everlasting life." God is the portion of the 



CHRIST OUR SHEPHERD IN HEAVEN. 249 

soul, and knowledge of God is the enjoyment of 
that portion. Are not these living fountains of 
water, then, the clear knowledge of God which Christ 
will bestow in heaven? Just as in Syria the shep- 
herd leads his flock to refreshing streams, so does 
Christ in heaven reveal God forever to his people. 
On earth he revealed the Father ; but it was only 
the alphabet, preparing them to read that perfect 
revelation. Blessed knowledge of God ! imparted 
in his immediate presence by his beloved Son ! and 
thrice blessed they who drink forever at those liv- 
ing fountains ! Why more than one ? Not that 
there is more than one God ; but the one God, 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, will be known, not 
as one monotonous apprehension, but in an infinite 
variety of view^s, eternally new and fresh. Just as 
the same fountain ever gives forth an abundant sup- 
ply of living water, the outflow ever new, but the 
fountain the same; or, just as the same hidden 
source pours of its abundance through many open- 
ings, imparting life wherever it comes, so our 
Shepherd in heaven forever reveals the infinite ful- 
ness of God, — now one attribute and now another, 
now in this line of manifestation and now in that, 
but ever the same infinitely glorious Jehovah. Here 
indeed he reveals God ; but he has to remove exter- 
nal hindrances, and create an inward preparation of 
heart. He reveals through imperfect media, slowly 



250 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

and gradually, as Christians are fitted to receive it. 
Here, even the best know but in part. There, the 
knowledge is perfect ; not that all is known at once, 
but it is a perfection of knowledge, ever enlarging 
as the soul can contain more of God. We may not 
fully understand it, but we know that Christ reveals 
it, and if from the bottom of some deep pit of sor- 
row he gives such glimpses of God on earth, what 
will he impart in the immediate presence ? If, amid 
clouds and darkness, he enables us to see so much, 
what will he reveal to us in the light of heaven ? If, 
amid so many hindrances, he reveals such glory in 
God as to lead one to say, "One thing have I de- 
sired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that 1 
may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of 
my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord ; " and 
another, " to count all things but loss for the excel- 
lency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord," 
what may we not expect when nothing remains but 
to reveal God forever to those prepared for the 
revelation ? 



CHAPTER XX. 



PRAYER FOR CHRIST. 



i' 



HE book of Psalms has much to say of Christ. 

Some entire psahns are devoted to him alone ; 

from the first verse to the last they do noth- 
ing else but proclaim his glory. In one of these it is 
written that ^ ■ Prayer also shall be made for him con- 
tinually, and daily shall he be praised." It is not 
strange that Christ should be praised ; but it strikes 
us with amazement that prayer should be made for 
him. We are not worthy to pray for ourselves, and 
who are we that we should be lifted up to the privilege 
of praying for Christ? The devout reverence of 
some has been so overwhelmed by the idea, that they 
have sought to translate the sentence " Prayer shall 
be made through him continually ; " but this render- 
ino^ does violence to the orio^inal. The same ex- 
pression is used when God says to Abimelech, King 
ofGerar, concerning Abraham, ^^ He is a prophet, 
and he shall pray for thee." Moses also uses it 
when he says, "I prayed for Aaron also;" and 
Samuel, when he said, " Gather all Israel to Mizpeh, 

251 



252 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

and I will pray for you unto the Lord." The He- 
brew may be rendered either "he," that is, the 
poor man whom Christ has delivered, "shall pray 
for him conthiually," or as it stands in our version ; 
but, since either way the meaning is the same, we 
need not dwell on this variation. 

In this psalm Christ is spoken of as a King ; and, 
though we are citizens of a republic, we know that 
the form of a government is not so important as the 
spirit of its administration. Indeed, in devising 
forms of government, men, thus far at least, have 
sought inore to render rulers powerless to do evil 
than positively efficient for good, because experience 
has shown that the first is by far the more important 
while man remains as he is ; but we do not need to 
guard against evil from Immanuel. There does not 
exist on earth, under any form, a government so 
righteous and beneficent as his ; for he is love, and 
his cross reveals at once his supreme regard for 
right and his kindness to men. In adoring him as 
a Saviour, let us not forget that he is also King of 
kings. He shall reign, not in a beautiful theory of 
government, crying out against its contradiction in 
practice, but "He cometh to judge the world with 
righteousness, and the people with his truth." His 
is a perfect administration of perfect laws, the boon 
which the whole earth groans and travails in pain 
for to-day. 



PRAYER FOR CHRIST. 253 

This title of King gives the most fitting utterance 
to loyalty and love for Christ. We rejoice that he 
shall reign supreme, because, "without iniquity, 
just and right is he ; " we rejoice that he shall reign 
forever, for his reign shall be forever faultless. 
Through eternity he can say, even to those suffering 
the penalty of transgression, " Which of you con- 
vinceth me of sin? " and never will one of them find 
anything to reply, not though every fallen spirit 
should combine in the search, and the discovery of 
the smallest wrong would fill Pandemonium with 
frenzied jubilation. 

The joyful subjects of this King are said to bring 
tribute of the best which they possess, the gold of 
Sheba being considered the purest and most pre- 
cious. Have our hearts thrilled as we read of love 
pouring its alabaster box of fragrance on those pre- 
cious feet ? Do we sympathize with the petition that 
has gone up for ages, and still cries, " Thy kingdom 
come ; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"? 
Then let us look forward to the day when the gold 
of Sheba will be but a poor symbol of the tribute 
rendered by that multitude which no man can num- 
ber, that treads yon golden streets. If pearls so 
large stand idle on hinges that never turn, what do 
thej^ not render to the King whom they adore ? 

As long ago as the days of Darius, loyalty was 
wont to pray, '' O king, live forever ! " "Long live 

22 



254 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

the king ! " has in all ages been the spontaneous cry 
of grateful hearts. Alas that the subjects of this 
prayer should have so often made the answer to it 
only prolong the misery of them that offered it ! But 
such is man ; and as we have the gospel in earthen 
vessels, that the excellence of the power may be 
seen to be of God, and not of man, so kings 
have been allowed to teach the race that the truest 
loyalty is due to Christ alone. If the wealth of love 
and service squandered on tyrants had been laid at 
the feet of Jesus, what a different world would meet 
our eyes to-day ! Such thoughts make us rejoice 
that this King " shall prolong his days ; " that ^^ his 
kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all 
dominions shall serve and obey him." 

Here is the Scripture view of prayer for the con- 
version of the world. It is not merely prayer for so 
many millions of heathen, or in concert with so 
many myriads of Christians ; but it is prayer for 
Christ. It may be offered in unison by the whole 
church, or go up like a solitary pillar of smoke in 
the desert ; but its crowning glory is that it is prayer 
for Christ. Is he, then, poor and needing to be made 
rich, or weak and in want of help? How can he, 
by whom all things were made, and for whom they 
all exist, need anything from man? Personally he 
is above the need of man, but the exceeding great 
and precious promises made to him are not yet ful- 



PRAYER FOR CHRIST. 255 

filled. So the apostle quotes the promise, "Thou 
hast put all things iu subjection under his feet," and 
then adds, "but now we see not yet all things put 
under him." This world was made for his glory ; 
but its inhabitants do not yet delight to honor him. 
Many sons were given him, to be made like him, 
and gathered with him into his Father's house ; but 
many of them are still children of wrath, not chil- 
dren of God. Prayer may be made for him, then, 
that his love may be appreciated, that his claims 
may be recognized, and that men may love him who 
so loved them ; that the good seed he sowed in tears 
and blood may grow and cover the face of the earth 
with golden grain ; in short, that he may see of the 
travail of his soul and be satisfied. 

Such is this prayer for Christ, and to ofifer it 
brings us near to God. It establishes the soul in 
him. So long as we give, without prayer, our 
thoughts are on what we do, and hope varies with 
the shifting aspect 'of events. We may send forth 
missionaries, and our hearts, intent on what they do, 
still fluctuate between the extremes of hope and de- 
spair, at one moment anticipating speedy and glori- 
ous success, the next mourning over the graves of 
our missionaries, and heathen hearts untouched by 
the love of which those graves are the memorials. 
We may come to God in prayer, and feel that his 
power is as great at the ends of the earth as iu our 



256 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

own homes, and yet will he put forth that power? 
The heathen are sinners, and therefore have no 
claim. They stifle the truth by their wilful trans- 
gression, and therefore provoke God to anger. The 
church also is self-indulgent and remiss in duty ; we 
dare not plead its devotion before him who knows 
of what sort it is. Our own zeal is still less worthy 
to be mentioned before God. How, then, have we 
courage to pray? In oflering prayer for the con- 
version of the world, as prayer for Christ. All 
others may be unworthy, but he is infinitely deserv- 
ing ; and as the elders of Capernaum came to him in 
behalf of the centurion, saying "that he was worthy 
for whom he should do this," so may we go to the 
Father in his behalf. Do not our hearts burn within 
us at the thought that we may pray for our Re- 
deemer? If, when we plead his righteousness for 
ourselves, God heareth us, will he not much more 
hear us when both the plea and the person for 
whom we plead is his beloved Son ? Have we not 
heard the Son ask for that crowning glory of re- 
demption, our presence with him where he is, on 
the ground of this love, saying, "For thou lovedst 
me from the foundation of the world " ? As we think 
of that love, so infinite, so unchanging, resting on 
an object inconceivably worthy of love, are not our 
hearts strong, ay, bold, in coming to the throne of 
grace on such an errand? For what other object 



PRAYER FOR CHRIST. 257 

of prayer can we bo so bold, adoring the infinite ex- 
cellence of Him for whom we pray, while we ask 
that he mav be Morified ? 

AVe think, too, of the promises made to Christ, 
and every one of them lends new sweetness and 
fervor to our praj^er. " His name shall endure for- 
ever ; " " Men shall be blessed in him ; all nations 
shall call him blessed," — are promises recorded along- 
side of this mention of prayer for Christ, as if on 
purpose to call it forth. And is not that " Ask of 
me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheri- 
tance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy 
possession," addressed to every sinner, who, grafted 
into the true vine, becomes one with him to whom 
these words apply ? The Father intends that every 
believer in Jesus should have a tongue to put him 
in remembrance of this command to ask, and prom- 
ise to bestow. 

Is it not, also, an inspiring encouragement to 
prayer, that the promises made to Christ are based 
on the redemption which he wrought out for sin- 
ners? "When thou shalt make his soul an offering 
for sin," — or, as the Hebrew may with equal accu- 
racy and more propriety be rendered, ^^ When his soul 
shall make an offering for sin, — he shall see his seed, 
he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the 
Lord shall prosper in his hands." Now, has not that 
offering for sin been made? Has not the Father 

22* 



258 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST, 

crowned it with his approval ? And on that ground 
may we not with all boldness offer prayer for Christ, 
since the unworthiness of the suppliant is swal- 
lowed up in the infinite w^orthiness of the atonement 
made by him for whom we pray ? 

Thus praying, may not our little, narrow requests 
enlarge themselves to a magnitude corresponding to 
the infinite glory of the person and work of our Ee- 
deemer? And, as in all the confidence of faith we 
urge them before the throne, do not our most ear- 
nest prayers spontaneously turn to praise, — praise for 
such a Redeemer and such a redemption, praise for 
such a prospect of glory to Christ, and tliat we are 
allowed to have anything to do in bringing it about? 
No wonder that the psalmist cannot mention this 
praying for Christ without adding, "and daily shall 
he be praised." 

Such prayer benefits our own souls. By nature 
we are selfish ; our thoughts centre round ourselves ; 
our personal interest is preferred before all else ; but 
this sweetly and yet with divine power draws us away 
from self. It enlarges our sympathies to the cir- 
cumference of the sympathies of Christ. We look 
on God, not as loving us first or chiefly, but the 
whole world, in the Redeemer. It glorifies our ap- 
prehension of Christ as not our Saviour only, but 
the Saviour of the world ; and thus beholding, as in 
a glass, the glory of the Lord, we are changed into 



PRAYER FOR CHRIST. 259 

the same image of Christlike benevolence. The 
arms of our love embrace the world now beloved for 
Jesus' sake. The church needs this education ; and 
does not the moral beauty of those who have been 
taught in this school of Christ glorify the Saviour 
who works such a transformation ? 

The Christian always loves Christ ; but as the 
river, that creeps sluggishly along its channel in 
midsummer, rushes headlong, a tumultuous flood, in 
earl}^ spring, so love to Christ has its seasons for 
overflow, and then the channel, ample enough at 
ordinary times, cannot meet its wants. There are 
times when the glory of Christ so enlarges before 
the eye, and glows in the heart, that our utmost ser- 
vice seems as nothing. His love appears so great 
that we feel we must make some return ; but then, 
more than at other times, all that we can render 
seems no return at all. The richest feels that his 
whole wealth is an oflfering all too poor ; and the 
missionary, dying like Gordon Hall, under the 
shadow of the heathen temple, where he had gone 
to preach of Jesus, feels that life itself falls far be- 
low the claims of such a Saviour. At such moments 
what can bring relief to love ? 

This prayer for Christ opens a channel large 
enough for the fullest tide of devotion, overpowered 
by the sight of that " love which passeth knowledge ; " 
and at such a time those words are not unmeaning. 



260 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

It is bliss to look up to one who fully comprehends 
all the glory of his person, and the perfection of his 
entire mediatorial work. We may never be able to 
reward him. for his love, not though angels come to 
the help of the church and eternity be devoted to 
the effort ; but the Lord God Omnipotent can ren- 
der him a full reward, and the full heart pours itself 
into the prayer, " Glorify thy Son, that thy Son 
also may glorify thee." Let the Infinite Mind, which 
alone can measure the fulness of his claims, devise 
his reward, and let Almighty power provide and 
bestow it. Let the most high God " divide him a 
portion with the great," "because he hath poured 
out his soul unto death," "and bare the sins of 
many." As we think of what Omnipotence can do 
for our Redeemer, a divine gladness fills the soul, 
and we rejoice even on earth with joy unspeakable 
and full of glory. 

When an earthly friend confers a favor, we say, 
instinctively, " May God reward you ! " and soon the 
event gives place to other thoughts ; but here the 
mind dwells on the wondrous fitness of divine power 
to reward redeeming love, and the longer we think, 
the greater is our delight, till it seems as though the 
claims of our Redeemer furnish our deepest, clear- 
est, and most joyful insight into the mystery of 
Omnipotence. Not ocean in its wildest moods, 
not earthquakes upheaving continents amid carnage 



PRAYER FOR CHRIST, 261 

and consternation, not the calm movements of the 
noiseless spheres, reveal a power so great, or reveal 
it in a way so glorious, as when we think of the 
Father rewarding Christ for all that he has done 
for us. 

Another glory of this prayer for Christ is seen in 
the blessing for which we ask : that God — his God 
and ours — would bless the Eedeemer by making 
known to all men the life he has purchased for them 
by his blood ; that " at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, and every tongue confess that he is 
Lord, to the glory of God the Father;" that "the 
knowledge of this Lord may fill the earth as the 
waters cover the sea." These are the breathings of 
the same life in us that we ask for others. We pray 
that they may have the same desire for the glory of 
Christ, and that he may be glorified in them ; and as 
we see Christ implanting and maintaining this life 
in us and others, does not the sight of his excellence 
continually grow larger and more clear? Not only 
on the cross did he work out redemption, but also 
on the throne he w^orks out the application of this 
redemption, nor shall he cease till the last one of 
the redeemed is glorified. 

What words can describe the joy of sympathy 
with such a being in such a work? If there is joy 
in the exercise of benevolence, if there is bliss in 
fellowship with God, here is the perfection of them 



262 GLIMPSES OF CHMIST. 

both, since in prayer for Christ, we have fellowship 
with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 
Our Lord ascended on high that lie might receive 
gifts for men, especially the gift of the Holy Ghost, 
and in that behold an illustration of this gracious 
fellowship. Christ says, "I will pray the Father, 
and he will give you another Comforter ; " and to en- 
courage us to do the same, he tells us, "If ye, then, 
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your 
children, much more will your heavenly Father give 
the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" The Head 
in heaven, and the members on earth, together pray 
for the Holy Ghost, who worketh in men to lead 
them to Jesus, and reveal to them his glory ; but 
it is a fellowship in which he gives and we receive ; 
for while he offers prayer divinely efficient in itself, 
it is his grace in us that repeats the same, and 
through him comes the answer. 

This fellowship with Christ is wonderful. It is 
amazing grace that, while Christ intercedes for us in 
heaven, grants us on earth the blessedness of pray- 
ing for our Intercessor. Yet, however wondrous in 
itself, it is no less so in its duration ; for while " He 
ever liveth to make intercession" "prayer shall be 
made for him continually." A great American 
orator once said of England, that "the morning gun 
of her garrisons heralded the rising of the sun around 
the world." The Christian can say more than that; 



PRAYER FOR CHRIST. . 263 

for, before England was known, pra3^er went up day 
and night for a Messiah to come, and, ever since, 
that outflow of supplication has grown larger and 
broader, till now, like the swell of the tidal wave, 
it sweeps across the ocean from the Equator to the 
Poles, — only unlike that wave it rolls over land as 
well as sea, — and soon prayer for Christ shall rise 
unceasingly from all lands, in all languages under 
the whole heaven. We shall die; but this prayer 
shall not die ; other hearts shall take it up, nor shall 
they cease till they, too, shall hand it down to others ; 
and so shall it be until his second coming. In each 
access to the throne of grace, we may sing, ^^One 
generation shall praise thy works to another, and 
shall make known thy mighty acts." "O Lord; 
the living, the living, he shall praise thee as I do 
this day." 

If it was a relief to Christ on the cross to say, ^^ It 
is finished," what will be his joy when he can look 
round on the entire results of his death, and say, 
"Tliese, too, are finished; not one iota of the joy 
set before me remains incomplete"? We cannot 
measure the capacity of that infinite heart for joy ; 
but, large as it may be, beyond even the ken of 
angels, we know that "when he shall see of the 
travail of his soul, he shall be satisfied. Glo- 
rious truth ! Christ shall be fully and forever 
satisfied ! for God shall satisfy him ; and to-day oui s 



264 GLIMPSES OF CHRIST. 

is the privilege of praying for that result, that in 
that day we may enter into the joy of our Lord, 

AND REJOICE IN HIS REWARD. 



Lord, thou hast loved us with a love 

We cannot measure or express ; 
It smiles upon us from above, 

A very heaven of tenderness. 

The more thy love our thought exceeds, 

The more we feel the impotence 
Of service, which from man proceeds, 

To render thee thy recompense. 

Even angels, mighty though they be, 
Their knowledge vast, their thought profound, 

For such a work are weak as we ; 
This sea of love they cannot sound. 

There is a mind hath power to know 

The fulness of thy love divine ; 
There is a hand that can bestow 

Meed worthy of such grace as thine. 

We ne'er behold such sumless dower 

Of glory in Omnipotence, 
As when shines forth in it the power 

To give to thee meet recompense. 

If gifted with but one request, 

It should be spent in prayer to see, 
With all the millions of the blest. 

The portion God bestows on thee. 



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